


Magnolia

by galadrieljones



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Age Difference, Alexandria Safe-Zone (Walking Dead), Alternate Universe, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Greene Sings, Beth Lives, Canon Era, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Escape, F/M, Falling in Love at the End of the World, First Love, Fix-It, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Undeath, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Beth Greene, POV Daryl Dixon, Past Child Abuse, Past Violence, Protective Daryl Dixon, Protectiveness, Reunions, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Team Family, Though Daryl is aged down a little bit, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 63,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galadrieljones/pseuds/galadrieljones
Summary: He heard the bolt lock into place. He rubbed his clean clothes into the dusty corners of the hospital room. He tried grinding dirt into the plaid with the soles of his shoes. Then he got dressed. He kicked the sandwich into little pieces, sat down and hung his head between his knees.Peach Schnapps, she’d said. Is it good?He tore himself apart inside. She'd had that little braid thing. It annoyed him, but only because it didn’t annoy him. It did the opposite to him, even then. He should have just fucking said it was good. Instead of being a surly dumbass. But then again, a man has got to learn, somehow.After escaping the funeral home, both Beth and Daryl are injured and captured away to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 97
Kudos: 199





	1. Birdcage

**Author's Note:**

> This an AU, and a canon rewrite. All I can do whenever I watch _TWD_ is try and imagine how things would be different if Beth had survived and she and Daryl were together. How does she change what happens? I feel she would impact the unfolding of events in a big way. This is me, writing my version of the story. 
> 
> Updates are currently every **Monday**. So far, the story breakdown looks like this:
> 
> Part 1: Grady (Ch. 1-4)  
> Part 2: Country Roads (Ch. 5-8)  
> Part 3: The Virginians (Ch. 9-12)  
> Part 4: The Climb (ongoing)
> 
> -gala ^_^

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **PART 1: GRADY**

“We saved you,” said Dawn. “So, you owe us.”

Daryl saw red. He was in hospital clothes, like a prisoner. It unnerved him, and so did this lady cop with a badge. “Don’t owe you shit.”

He grabbed the IV, broke it in half over his leg. He didn’t threaten anybody with it. He just tossed it to her feet, so that she startled a little bit. So that she knew what was up. He wasn’t what she was used to. But she had a gun.

“Easy,” said the doctor.

“Where’s Beth.”

“Who’s Beth?”

“Beth,” said Daryl. “The girl I was with. You gonna tell me she ain’t in here? I saw one of you take her.”

They looked at one another, then turned around and left, quickly. They wouldn't answer.

“You think I’m stupid?” said Daryl. 

The doctor locked the door in their wake, gave him a long look through the glass window.

“Where is she?” Daryl smacked his palms to the wood, so hard they stung, and his eyes watered, but the doctor was gone. He smacked them again, and again. The room was deafening in its quiet buzzing sounds, antiseptic and cold white. Daryl goddam hated hospitals. A hospital was where his grandma died from lung cancer when he was eight. She was the only one ever looked out for him. Grandma Jean smoking her cigarettes in the sunroom, making him ovaltine in mason jars, and then watering the plants. He looked around. He took his shirt off, because he wouldn’t wear no shirt that wasn’t his own. He paced for a while, thinking. About what would Rick would do.

He had some hard, purple bruising in his ribs. He could feel it when he breathed. The skin was all black and blue on one side, and his shoulder hurt like a bitch. But he’d broken ribs before, dislocated shoulders, broken collar bones, got shot. It weren’t nothing to Daryl.

He started dismantling that hospital bed, piece by piece.

In a little while, he had rigged up a long hunk of metal that he reckoned would be strong enough to pry the door open. He waited until it was dark outside, and the hallway was quiet. Some hours before, a different lady cop who called herself Shepherd had come to bring him some dinner, but he told her to just leave it. Just go. She wasn’t pushy, so she obliged him and left without unlocking the door. Cranking the door open wasn’t quiet, but it wasn’t too loud either. He started roaming the hall with that hunk of sharpened scrap. The lights were dim. The place was quiet. Somebody grabbed hold of him hard from an open doorway, tugged him through. It was some string bean kid. Daryl picked up the scrap to wack him over the head, but the kid surrendered, hands in the air.

“Wait,” he said. He was young, looked younger than Beth, afraid, but kind of amused as well.

“Who the hell are you.”

“Noah,” said the kid. He pushed past Daryl, checking the coast was clear. He closed the door. They were in some sort of break room. It was filled with packaged snacks, which Daryl began stuffing in his pockets indiscriminately. He tore open a bag of oreos, ate about six.

“You’re hungry,” said Noah.

“How can you tell?” said Daryl, his mouth full.

“You really shouldn’t be out here like this,” said Noah. “You break out of that room or what?”

“What the hell is this place?” said Daryl, squaring up with him, dropping the piece of scrap to the floor. It made an unpleasant, clanging noise. The fluorescent lights overhead were starting to flicker.

“It’s a hospital,” said Noah. “Grady Memorial, in Atlanta.”

"You gotta be shittin me,” said Daryl. “I’m back in Atlanta?”

“Yes, sir.”

He grunted, went back to the door, looking through the window.

“What happened to your shirt?” said Noah.

“Took it off,” said Daryl.

“Why?”

“You seen a girl?” said Daryl, imposing his size. “Blonde, big blue eyes.”

“Real pretty?” said Noah.

Like falling off a cliff, being punched in the face. Daryl gave him a look. “Yeah.”

“She’s here,” said Noah. “Beth, right?”

“Yeah,” said Daryl. He was interested now. This was good. “Beth. She okay?”

“Sure. She’s right down the hall,” said Noah. “I could take you to her, but—”

There was a sound then. Somebody was messing with the door handle, unlocking the bolt with a key from the other side. Daryl picked up the scrap off the floor, and Noah showed his hands.

It was Dawn, and Shepherd. Shepherd looked as a kicked dog, was staring down at her shoes. Maybe Dawn had found out about the dinner by the door. Dawn had her gun pointed square between Daryl’s eyes. “Drop it,” she said.

Daryl obeyed, immediately.

"Where’s your shirt?” said Dawn.

“Don’t need your shit,” said Daryl, holding his hands up. “Didn’t ask for it. Why don’t you gimme back my clothes.”

Dawn looked at Noah, then she looked back at Daryl. She holstered her gun and directed Shepherd to stick him in handcuffs. “Sorry,” said Shepherd, softly, so that Dawn couldn’t hear. He didn’t know what to make of it.

They took him to a different room. This one didn’t have a bed, didn’t have nothing but a sleeping bag and a pillow and a plate with a sandwich and a cup of water. Once he was inside, Dawn had Shepherd remove his handcuffs, then she tossed him a plastic grocery bag. Inside were his clothes, clean and folded.

“You washed my goddam clothes?” said Daryl. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Dawn. She raised her eyebrows, real smug. Then she left and pulled the door shut behind her. He heard the bolt lock into place. He rubbed his clean clothes into the dusty corners of the hospital room. He tried grinding dirt into the plaid with the soles of his shoes. Then he got dressed. He kicked the sandwich into little pieces, sat down and hung his head between his knees.

 _Peach Schnapps,_ she’d said. _Is it good?_

He tore himself apart inside. She'd had that little braid thing. It annoyed him, but only because it didn’t annoy him. It did the opposite to him, even then. He should have just fucking said it was good. Instead of being a surly dumbass. But then again, a man has got to learn, somehow.

Two days later, he had gotten by on eating just a couple handfuls of almonds here and there, some of the snacks from his pocket, drinking water. He had done with worse, before and after the prison. Before and after the end of the world.

He thought he was hearing things sometimes. People shouting, screaming. Yelling, voices he didn't recognize and medical emergencies that never ended well. He always listened for Beth, but he couldn't hear her. He was only let out a couple times a day, to take a piss, to stretch his legs. Like a fuckin animal. It was always Dawn that did it. He saw some of the other officers sometimes, from around corners or through windows into darkened rooms. Nobody would look him in the eye. 

He finally got the doctor to tell him what had happened that afternoon, but only through the door, and it sounded like bullshit. The doctor seemed afraid of Daryl. He said, “You were hit by a car.”

“What car,” said Daryl. “Didn’t get hit by no car.”

“One of ours,” said the doctor. “You jumped right in front of it.”

“I did not,” said Daryl.

He remembered being hit by a car, it’s true. But to his recollection, it had been them who’d run him down. He was going for Beth. Once he bit the pavement, he couldn’t see her anymore.

The doctor removed his little glasses, polished them on his coat, nervously. Daryl watched through the window in the door. “Well, perhaps you did not do it on purpose. This is just what Officer Gorman reported.”

"Who the fuck is Officer Gorman."

The doctor didn't answer.

Daryl took a step back. The corners of the room seemed to be closing in on him. “Can I at least get my goddam cigarettes?”

The doctor slid a notebook under the door instead, with a pencil. No cigarettes.

“What the hell is this?” said Daryl. “You want my written confession?”

“No,” said the doctor. “It’s just something to do.”

“Something to do?” said Daryl.

“Write something, about yourself. Your life. You’ve got time to kill.”

“My life. What the hell you wanna know about my life for?”

“It’s only a suggestion,” said the doctor. “You don’t have to do anything.”

He went away. Daryl lay down on his back and stared up at the ceiling, his brain making shapes out of the cracks and stains. He stayed like that for a long time. There was nothing else to do. Every time he moved, his ribs hurt, but every time he lie still, he saw Beth. What would Rick do? Rick would tell him to rest. There was nothing to do, not yet. Rest, build your strength. Have patience. Wait for your moment.

That night, Daryl dreamed that he could hear Beth singing through the walls. He dreamed that Rick had given him a pickaxe back at the jail, which he had somehow hidden from the doc and the cop, via complex dream logic. He chopped holes through every room in every wall on the entire floor with Rick’s pickaxe until he found her, and when he finally did, she had fallen asleep with her head on the piano keys. Her hair was hanging in her face, hanging down like a loose yellow curtain in the warm sun.

He awoke with a start, his face planted on the hard floor. There was somebody knocking on the door.

“Daryl. Daryl you up?”

It was Noah. Daryl went to the door and placed his big mitts on the jamb, listening. "I'm up."

“Beth knows you’re here,” said Noah. “She drew her own conclusions and started asking questions. She’s been creating kind of a situation because of it.”

“What kind of situation?”

“Dawn is gonna be here first thing in the morning, with Officer Shepherd. Shepherd’s first name’s Amanda, and she’s cool. They’re not all cool, but she is. I heard Dawn mention she was finally gonna try and give you a job, to keep you busy. I heard her say they don't know what to do with you, so that’s why they’re coming.”

“A job?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Noah. He slid a plastic shiv under the door. It was real crude, looked like he’d melted it together from a couple of plastic spoons, but it was sharp. “When they open the door, that’s your chance.”

“My chance for what?” said Daryl. “To kill somebody? Is that what you think I am?”

“Not kill,” said Noah. “Just make a threat. Get what you want. I seen you do it before.”

Daryl grunted, picked up the shiv and weighed it in his hand. “Why you helping me?”

There was a little silence. He could feel Noah contemplating on the other side.

“Hey.”

“Because she’s nice,” said Noah.

“Beth?”

“Yeah. She listens to me. She asks me questions about my life. She's a good person. And it just—it seems like you two should be together. You don't belong here.”

Daryl glanced back to the window. It was still dark, no purple, no red. _Peach Schnapps._ He shook his head out like a dog.

“First thing in the morning,” said Noah. “Be ready.”

After Noah was gone, Daryl sat down on the sleeping bag to study the tip and the length of the shiv, looking like something Merle would’ve come up with back in the day. Then he set it neatly by his side, studying its deadly contours, and picked up the notebook and the pencil given to him by the doc. Bored and annoyed, it was true that he had time to kill.

_Dear Rick. Fuck this. I asked these people for my cigarettes, and the doctor whatever his name gave me this paper instead, with a dull ass pencil. Told me to write something down, something about my life, like this is school and I’m his dumbass student. I was never good in school. Never liked no teachers neither. Couldn't even muster the grades to graduate. Maybe it was my poor attendance. But I guess you wasn’t asking._

_I been trying, Rick. I see red in this place. Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Red in my eyes and I taste it in my mouth. Feel it in my guts. Guess I got something to write about after all. Beth would be proud, since, I don’t know, she notices little dumb things about me and says they’re good. They ain’t but it’s what she sees. I saved her, at the prison. Then she saved me. We was in a fuckin moonshine shack in the swamps outside the city. She was talking big about you still being alive, believes in you. Guess I do, too._

_We was together, then we wasn’t. I know she’s here now but they won’t tell me nothing. This is some sort of hospital but with cops. I don’t think this is any sort of real thing. You would know, but you ain’t here. They better not be touching her. I ain’t none too good, Rick. I can’t tell what’s going on in this place. Seems fake, and I ain’t none too good._

_You will never see this anyway. I’m about to rip it to pieces the second I’m done. God might see it though, and I guess Hershel from up on the side of the hill, with Jesus and birds and all that, so I should watch my ugly mouth. If it’s real, at least. Maybe real ain’t real. Maybe you’re dead. Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is what it’s like to be dead. There are a lot of ways to be dead, I’m learning._

_I’m sorry, Rick. I’m sorry. I ain’t nobody, wasn’t nobody till this shitshow, and with you and the others, at the jail. It was the best year of my life, even in the after part when for all I know you have been dead for weeks. I will find Beth. I promise you that. It’s what you would do and what I’m gonna. We will get out of here, out of Atlanta for the second time, and if you ain’t dead then we will find you. We will find you, brother. Shit._

_-Daryl_

The next morning, Dawn and Shepherd came just like Noah said they would. He pretended to be asleep on the floor against the wall toward the back of the door. Once they were inside, he was upon Shepherd, felt bad about it because she had only been nice to him here, but a man has to do what a man has to do. He had the shiv pressed to her soft throat, was holding her as gentlemanly as possible without giving her the out to break free. Dawn drew her gun, but she couldn't, wouldn't do shit. He told her to drop it as the energy in the room became hot, then it sizzled like they were just slabs of meat frying on a pan. She set her gun onto the floor in the hallway, placed her hands in the air. She looked suspicious, but like she was not wholly surprised. 

He said, "I wanna see Beth." He yanked Shepherd by the hair. He felt sorry about it. He said, "Bring her here, right now. I wanna know she's okay."

Dawn backed away, slowly, into the hallway. She said, "Okay, okay. There's no need for this."

"Bring her to me," said Daryl, growling. 

Dawn whistled through her fingers then, and this shook Daryl up. He refocused his grip so that Shepherd cried out, fearfully, her head tipped back against his shoulder. He felt bad, truly he did. He said to her, real quiet, "I'm sorry. I had to do it."

There was a struggle then, outside of Daryl's view, and Dawn reached over till she got ahold of something and yanked Beth into the doorway like a great big fuckin bird. She was standing there, looking around, like she was angry, and she didn't know what was going on. But then she saw him, and instantly, she smiled, her big, wet eyes, like familiar lights in the darkness. He pushed off Shepherd right away so she went out the door, her weight replaced by Beth's who clamped onto him with her familiar, even aggressive, affectionate embrace. He smelled her hair, which was clean and like shampoo, like flowers, and he was comforted. The door slammed shut behind them. They were alone. Dawn was turning the bolt. 

"There," she shouted through the door, like she was angry about something. Like she was angry about the two of them, together. He could only see half her face, glassy-eyed on the other side of the glass window. "There. Now you have each other."

Beth was always heavier than she looked. She was sort of tall for a girl, long legs and long arms, real rangy. She squeezed. It hurt his ribs something awful, made it hurt to breathe, again. He didn't care. He had waited for his moment. He got what he needed.

"I knew I'd find you, Daryl Dixon," she said, her voice muffled in the folds of his shirt. "I dreamed it."

He held onto her tight, feeling it. This was real. It was real now, not some dream or a distant memory or a cold, empty room in a hospital in the middle of an urban nightmare. His lips pressed to her yellow hair. Her hands twisting into the back of his vest.

"They hurt you?" he said.

She didn't say anything at first. Just held onto him, like moss, growing feral on a tree trunk in the swamp. Little white flowers, all up and down, floating lily pads in the water. Little brown toads hopping about, and herons dipping their beaks in. 


	2. Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cw: mention of Beth’s past suicide-attempt_

Beth had been slapped before, by a girl. She remembered this one time, when she had been kissing Jenna Johnson's boyfriend, Greg Anderson, out behind the school during the Sadie Hawkins dance in tenth grade. It was so stupid. Beth had gone to the dance with the quarterback, Kyle James, but Kyle was dumb as corn, and about as interesting as drywall. Greg Anderson, on the other hand, may have been a cattle farmer and a rodeo man from Coweta County, but he didn’t live in the town Senoia proper, and he was mysterious. He was a bad boy. Greg had good forearms and he spoke little. He was serious, so she just knew he was smart, somewhere inside his rebellious, roping brain. It would take Beth some time to realize she had a type.

Jenna Johnson was a cowgirl and Greg’s childhood friend. She was muscular and wore a color lipstick that didn’t really match her skin tone. When Jenna caught Beth kissing Greg at the dance, she threw Beth onto the ground with a lot of surprise strength, and when Beth got back up again, Jenna slapped her as hard as she could across her face, leaving a mark. Greg stood there, watching, stupidly as a goat.

Beth knew she deserved it. She never hung out with Greg Anderson again, and she never told her daddy nor her momma nor Maggie nor Shawn and instead made up a story that she had taken a sip of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill and tripped over a garden hose, bumping her cheek on a bike rack at the school. Wouldn’t tell who she’d got the Boone’s Farm from, seeing as it was a lie, but it didn’t much matter. She got in so much trouble after that dance and that imaginary sip of Boone’s Farm, her daddy grounded her for a month.

Beth had been slapped before. But she had never wanted to slap back before. Until Dawn.

Dawn was a despot and a moron, waiting on an imaginary savior to come and sweep her off her dumb cop’s feet. Beth thought it was so stupid how, after all this time, Dawn still wore her full uniform, her badge, still living in the past like nothing had changed at all. Beth hated this place, this “hospital,” this weird, empty void. No friendships, no loves. No brothers or sisters, no fathers, sons, daughters. Nothing happy, nothing good, not even anything to remember. Nobody in charge cared about nothing but themselves here, and though she may have spent the previous year living in a damn prison, Beth had never felt so imprisoned as she did now.

Beth wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Screaming was for girls and dumb bitches who get mad, the highlight of their life kissing a boy they did not have possession of, behind the school at the Sadie Hawkins Dance in Senoia, Georgia, sophomore year. But that was a long time ago, and Beth wasn’t that girl no more.

After the whole thing with Joan’s arm, and mopping up her blood off the hospital floor, Beth felt dejected and sad. Her mind swirled as a weather system, up and down, fast and slow. She went to her room and went to sleep and had a dream that she looked out the window and she saw a whole herd of zebras grazing in a field not unlike the one behind her family farm. She watched their striped bodies, muscled and alive in the tall, golden grasses, blowing in the breeze, waving like beautiful strangers. In the dream, Beth knew she had never seen anything so beautiful, or free. She was comforted by the proven truth that whatever was making people into walkers, it didn’t affect animals. Unencumbered by our burdens, they remained. The window was clean that she was looking out, clean and loose, and when she pushed it, it opened. She thought about when the sun might come out again.

The next day, she was on the rooftop with Dr. Edwards. He was telling her some story about his plight, and she noticed his idiotic softness. He seemed to think that living was just breathing now, that it was all the same, but Beth knew that was bullshit. He didn’t know what she knew, didn’t have Rick, nor her daddy to guide him home and to his salvation, even if wars did tear them asunder. He had creature comforts and for him, this was enough. He liked her though, looked at her sweetly, like she was just the same, like she and him was the same. She thought about it and how lucky she was, that she didn’t have to be like him. The feeling emboldened her, made her strong.

But he lied.

Beth used his own squishy cowardice against him, that night, in the half-light of his office after he got Trevitt killed, and she got him to tell her the truth about Daryl.

“He’s here,” he said. He was embarrassed, maybe afraid even, looking bovine in his loss for words. The record player was on. It was something stupid, something old. The Beatles. Beth hated the Beatles. She remembered once, Maggie had been playing the Beatles off a cassette tape, and when she left the room to go call somebody on the phone, Beth took the tape and tossed it out the window, into the bushes. When Maggie asked where it was, Beth didn’t lie. She said, _I threw it out the window. I ain’t listening to that stuff no more._

“You been lying,” she said to the doctor. “You lied.” She shoved him in the chest, so that he stumbled backward in shock. He straightened his glasses, a coward, and she hated him. She was filled with rage, and little did he know the kinds of stupid things she’d done, how mean she could be, how she had burned down a whole house, shot at men who killed her father, stabbed rabid walkers in the brain, cut herself. She may not have been brave from the start. She was a stupid boy crazy bitch who tried to steal somebody’s boyfriend and then lied about drinking Boone’s Farm. But she wasn’t that girl no more. She pushed him again, then again, until he had his back to the bookshelf. “Where is he?”

“You should know,” said Dr. Edwards, avoiding eye contact, “that I tried to talk to Dawn. I tried to convince her that it wouldn’t work, keeping you apart.”

“Well, I wonder why she didn’t listen to you. Maybe it’s because you’re a piece of shit.”

“He’s okay,” said Dr. Edwards. “But he’s not been…cooperative. We can’t let him out of his room yet without supervision. People are afraid he’ll shake things up.”

"You treat him like an animal,” said Beth. “I shoulda known. All of you, treatin us like animals. But you’re right. You’re right to be afraid. You don’t know him, and you don’t know me. You don’t know what we been through.”

“Is he your boyfriend? Your family?”

“What would you know about family?” said Beth. She picked up the needle off the record, then she picked up the record and banged it against the bookshelf so that it shattered. This startled him, made him see real clear. “I hate this fuckin shit,” she said. “You listen to your shitty music, eat your rodent stew in here, safe and happy all by yourself with this expensive painting you found on the street. It’s probably a fake, and you wouldn’t know. You’re too stupid. And you lied. You killed that man to save your own ass, and you lied.”

“To be fair, Beth, it was you who killed Trevitt.”

“I’ll kill you,” she said. She still had one piece of that busted record in her hand. It was sharp. She got up in his face with it. Earlier that day, that disgusting cop with the _Leave it to Beaver_ haircut had put that goddam sucker in her mouth, made her feel repulsed, and powerless. And she knew what he was doing to Joan. But she wasn’t powerless no more. All anybody did in this place was try to usurp her from the things she knew that ever since the prison, she was truly capable of, and she was sick of it. “I’ll kill you, while you sleep. Unless you take me to him.”

“Okay,” said Dr. Edwards, almost like he believed her. Maybe he did. She didn't care, as long as she got what she wanted. “Okay. I’ll talk to Dawn, tonight.”

“Thank you."

As soon as Beth backed off, he started picking up the pieces of his record off the floor. She watched him for a minute, almost feeling sorry for how pathetic he seemed.

"You should treat people like people," said Beth, in a moment of clarity. She tossed the hunk of broken record to the floor by his feet. "We ain't resources. We're people."

"We try," said Dr. Edwards.

"Yeah, right."

She went out into the hallway, and she started walking back to her room with her fists clenched, staring straight ahead, like she meant business. Officer Shepherd tried saying something to her as she went by. She was nice, nicer than some of the others, but Beth ignored her. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to stop. She went into her room, and she closed her door. She went to the window. She looked out at the blanched and burnt out, infested landscape of Atlanta. Endless unfolding skyscrapers and long, flat, gray warehouses and rotten alleys crawling with the dead. In the far away distance, she watched a brown falcon swoop down between two buildings, then land upon a telephone pole with its catch in its beak.

Beth smiled.

Beth had been refraining from thinking of Daryl too much, because it hurt. She felt irrevocably bonded to him, like it was written in the stars, but she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again. But now that she knew he was alive, she was starting to vibrate. Where they had left off, it was an ellipsis. It wasn't fair. There was so much to say, but now the days going by were making it all protracted, and spread out, losing focus. What if it disappeared? What if he changed his mind. That night, Beth dreamed of Daryl. The dream was simple. They were sitting on a country porch somewhere, watching a bunch of deer drink from a pink river while the sun went down. Rick walked by holding a silver bucket, and then Carl walked by, holding baby Judith in his arms, and he tipped his hat. They went about their business to the river, where Rick filled the bucket, and Judith laughed while Carl made a funny face. Maggie and Glenn were there, all drinking from the river. Maggie was wearing a white dress, and Glenn was wearing a white shirt, their faces clean.

Beth felt an enormous love in her heart. That was the whole foundation of the dream, the thing upon which all visions and imagery seemed to grow. Her love could fill the whole world. It was bright and big as the sun. She knew her daddy would be proud of them, and he was safe with her momma in Heaven. She knew.

On the porch then, Daryl had his hair tucked behind his ears. She could see his whole face, his blue eyes. He passed her the bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. He said, “Keep singin, little songbird.” So she did.

When she woke up, she felt calm. Her whole body still, and at peace. She got out of bed, put her shoes on, tied the laces and then put her hair into a ponytail. She decided to write a letter to Maggie. There were things, things growing inside her that she needed to set free. On her first day, Dr. Edwards had given her a notebook and a pencil, but not until now had she found the strength or time to write things down. It had been too much. She didn't know what to do, or how to feel.

_Dear Maggie,_

_When I first woke up in this place, I didn’t know where I was. I smelled alcohol. It was everywhere, in the air, but not the drinking kind. You know what that’s like. It’s the real kind, antiseptic. Like the hospitals we used to find daddy when he had too much. Remember when he crashed the car into a mail truck on Main Street by the water treatment plant? It was right by Hutchins Lake, and he almost got himself killed that day. I don’t like hospitals. It’s not the blood, or the sick. I don’t know. It’s just this. It’s the smell, so unnatural. Like a terrible reminder._

_There’s a big hole, after daddy. He weren’t perfect. That’s what I loved most about him, because it made him seem within reach. I miss him so much._

_It’s bad here, Maggie. It’s like everybody wears a mask, covering their whole face, and then their face, it’s just another mask, or else it’s a fuckin monster. The men here are not like the men we know. They aren’t like Rick and Glenn and Daryl. They’re wolves._

_I been thinking about you, and what it would be like if we were together, right now. What you would do. You would be brave and mean, and bossy. So I been trying that out myself. I must say, it ain’t half bad, but I’m always right on the edge of crying. When I see you again, I will tell you all about it._

_Did you know that Daryl, his eyes are bluer up close than they seem far away, because his eyes are small, like gems, set real deep, but when they really open, it is mighty blue? He’s blue, too. I never known so much blue in a man, not since daddy. But he lets me in sometimes._

_Pray for us. I am praying for you and Glenn. Rick and Carl and baby Judith. Michonne. Sasha, Tyreese, Carol. The kids. Every day I’m praying._

_Love always,_

_Beth._

As she was folding up the letter into a little square, the light was just beginning to change outside her window. Purples, then pinks, then golds. There was chaotic shouting in the hallway, coming up fast. She went to the door, could see, people were running by. There were guys in badges standing around, with their hands on their guns.

There was a knock on the door. It was Noah. She rubbed her eyes, slipping the letter into her pocket. He seemed distressed. 

“What’s goin on?” she said. “It ain’t even light out yet.”

“Shh,” said Noah. “Come on.”

“What?”

He was pained, his eye bruised up, his lip still swollen. She felt bad about it. He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

“Wait. About what?”

“About Daryl,” he said.

She didn't know what he was talking about.

“I knew he was here," said Noah. "I just—I didn’t want you doing something rash. You see what happens when people get out of line here. But I put something into action. Come with me now.”

She didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t have time to. She trusted Noah. Noah took her hand, led her down the hallway some, where she saw Dawn pointing a gun in the doorway to one of the rooms toward the end. It worried her. It was a bad scene. Dawn was a bad person. Beth couldn’t wrap her head around it, but then Dawn set the gun down onto the floor and backed away from the doorway with her hands up, like she was scared or something. She glanced in Beth’s direction, deranged. She said, “Okay, okay." She said, "There’s no need for this.” Beth could barely hear her. She thought she could hear some more voices, but it was far away.

"Noah?" she said. 

A moment later, Dawn whistled through her fingers. Noah started leading Beth by the hand.

"Where you takin me?"

“It’s okay.”

Dawn grabbed her wrist when she got close enough, real hard, hard enough to leave a bruise which pissed Beth off, and Beth tried kicking and swatting her away. She was so sick of this woman, trying to put her in submission, leaving marks on her like she was a fuckin sheep. But Dawn was stronger, wrestled her close and then shoved her forward with great strength, into the room. Confused, Beth swung around. She was ready to put her fist in somebody’s throat, but then everything stopped.

He was just standing there, his eyes real feral but then they got big when he saw her. Like windows opening, changing his whole face, just like she'd written in her letter to Maggie. Blue. He was holding onto Officer Shepherd, had something jagged pressed to her throat, but once he was focused on Beth, he pushed Shepherd forward and out of reach, and she stumbled past and out of the room, clutched to her throat like she couldn’t breathe.

Beth went straight to him. He picked her up so that her feet left the floor. The two of them together were like a super human, she thought. A super human. Nobody was gonna pull them apart, not no more. He smelled like sweat and clean clothes. It made her think of the woods, and little white flowers, and holidays on the farm, and home. Whatever that was or would come to be. 

“There,” said Dawn, so cruel, pulling the door shut and turning the lock. “There, now you have each other.”

“I knew I’d find you, Daryl Dixon,” Beth said. She was thinking about strawberry wine, thinking about fire, about farm fields, and clear, fast rivers. “I dreamed it.”

He was solemn as he held her. So solid and sturdy, like a great big Magnolia. She could feel his heart beating inside his chest.

“They hurt you?” he said. 

She couldn’t hear him at first. She could feel his words catching in her hair. Then she said she was fine. “I’m fine.”

"You sure?"

The sun was up now, coming through the window, warming the room with its light.

"Daryl." She looked up at him, and the seriousness in his eyes. He was so serious. 


	3. Steel Magnolia

“Did you know,” said Beth, “I read once, that snow leopards, when they are living wild in their natural habitat like, in the Himalayas, they only mate for a season at a time, like every other year? But when in captivity, like a zoo or something, some snow leopards decide to settle down, and mate for life?”

They were sitting on the floor of Daryl's empty room, leaning against the wall, with their knees touching. They were holding hands, their fingers like shoelaces. Daryl gave her a strange look, as she was kind of a strange girl. “Did you know wolves mate for life," he said.

“What?” she said.

“Yeah,” said Daryl. Now she was looking up at him, revealing her whole face. Like a blue moon. “Merle told me. For a while we was living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a trailer, and there was a pack of wolves lived in the woods behind. Merle bought a book on wolves to learn how to deal with em. And apparently, they mate for life.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” said Beth.

“One of the rare few mammals that do.”

He felt stupid all of a sudden, for no reason. He wasn’t used to knowing things.

"In another life, I might have said that was romantic,” said Beth, looking at her shoes.

"What about this one?" said Daryl.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I would just have to think about it more."

Daryl wished to change the subject. He was chewing on a piece of his hair, rubbing his thumb over each and every one of Beth’s knuckles. Her other hand was in a cast, which she rested innocently above his knee.

“Daryl?”

“Yeah?”

She pushed some of the hair off his face. This shook him at first. She had touched him before, was touching him now. Still, he was always a little suspicious. Didn't know why. He just wan't used to it. Like it might not last. It might go away. Suddenly, he was thinking about those wolves. 

She said, “I just wanted to see your eyes. You’re always hiding behind your hair.”

“I ain’t hiding.”

“Remember when we was at the funeral home, before the walkers came. You was eating them gross pig's ears, and we was drinking soda.”

“The white trash brunch,” said Daryl. “Yeah. How could I forget.”

She rolled her eyes. “White trash brunch. You’re making me miss pancakes.”

“Who in your family used to make the pancakes,” said Daryl.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s always one person who usually makes the pancakes, in every house.”

“Well, usually my momma would make the pancakes.”

“I bet they was good,” said Daryl. He cracked a small smile.

"Who made them in your house?”

“I did."

She softened up, like butter. She was contemplating something.

“What?” said Daryl.

“Nothing,” she said. She set her head on his shoulder so that some of her hair curled up and started tickling his nose. He smoothed it away. “Maybe you can make me pancakes one day. Maybe we'll find ourselves in like, a real kitchen again. With a stove, and a window. The sunlight coming in. Can you picture that?"

"I can. I'll do my best."

"I’m sorry we got split up,” she went on, sadly. She was shaking her head, like it was her fault. “Back at the funeral home. I couldn’t think about it, for a long time. I thought I lost you.”

“You would’ve figured it out,” said Daryl. “If I wasn’t here.”

"Maybe.”

“You’re strong,” he said. “You're a real steel magnolia, Beth. You just don’t know it sometimes. You would’ve figured it out.”

She burrowed closer. He wondered how close she would get. If she would keep on going, what would happen next. She said, “Sometimes, I just feel like my soul is going loose inside my body while I’m in this place. And I wonder where it wants to be. Ain't nowhere to call home no more. Not the farm. Not the prison.”

“Your soul going loose?” 

“Yeah. It’s not literal. It’s like, a metaphor.”

“I got it.”

“Where does your soul wanna be?” said Beth.

Daryl thought about it. He felt fine just where he was. “Here, I guess.”

“In the hospital?”

“No,” said Daryl. “I mean, well you know what I mean.”

He felt stupid, again, but she didn’t seem to think so. He hadn’t forgotten the funeral home, and what they were talking about, and the letter she had been writing to the people there. The people whose food they’d ganked. He’d swiped it for her on the way out, but then he lost it.

"I had a dream about you last night," said Beth.

"Really?"

"Yeah," she said. "You was drinking Boone's Farm on a porch somewhere and calling me _little songbird_."

This amused him. "Boone's Farm?" said Daryl. "Wouldn't never drink no Boone's Farm. You know that by now."

"I know," said Beth. "But I would, and in my dream, everybody is basically me, so."

"Makes sense."

“I been talking to Noah,” she said.

"Oh yeah?”

“He’s got a plan.”

“What kind of plan.”

“To escape.” 

“Don’t need no escape plan,” said Daryl. “We’re gonna walk right out the front door.”

She smiled up at him. “What are you thinkin?”

“I’m thinkin, I got them to bring you to me. I can get them to let us out. Or you can. One of us can. But I don’t know about Noah.”

“We can’t leave him here,” said Beth. She squeezed his hand. “He’s a good person. He doesn’t deserve this—this life of _servitude._ Bein used.”

Her wanting to jailbreak Noah made things complicated. He wanted to argue, but ultimately, he agreed. “Well then, we might need a plan.”

Later that afternoon, Officer Shepherd came to the door, with Noah. Dawn wasn’t there. Beth and Daryl stood holding hands, at the back of the room, in front of the window, ready for anything. They had fallen asleep for a while, making up for their exhaustion upon being alone, but now they were awake.

“Don’t worry,” said Shepherd. “We just need Beth.”

“What for?” said Daryl.

“She’s been helping out with some of the patients,” said Noah. “One of them, she’s asking for her.”

“Which patient?” said Beth.

“Joan.”

Beth looked up at Daryl, chewing his hair. She said, “He’s coming with me.”

Shepherd and Noah looked at each other. This was not part of the plan.

“Why not?” said Beth. She took a step forward. She let go of Daryl's hand. He reached for it back. “What does Dawn think he’s gonna do? Burn the place down?”

“It’s okay,” said Daryl.

“No, it ain’t,” she said. “Daryl’s coming.”

Noah was smiling. He had a bruise around his eye and a bloody lip that looked about two days old. Officer Shepherd was pained but ultimately relented. As Daryl and Beth walked past her and out the room to the fluorescent hallway, she said to Daryl, “Don’t do anymore stupid shit, okay? I can’t keep covering for you.”

“Never asked you to cover for me,” said Daryl. “But I am sorry, again, about the whole shiv thing. I never would’ve, you know. I wanted Dawn, but you was first in the room. Wouldn’t be surprised if she made it that way on purpose.”

“I get it,” she said, and it sounded like she really did. She looked down at her boots like she was thinking about somebody, somebody important that still lived a full life inside her memory. Maybe she had a life outside this place, or had used to. That changes things. “Just don’t do it again.”

Right as they got to Joan’s door, Dawn came up. She was wearing a white t-shirt and a blue baseball cap. The t-shirt had her precinct number and last name. _Lerner._ She looked like she had been exercising and was drinking water from a clear plastic bottle.

“Beth,” she said. “Can I talk to you.”

Beth waited. She looked back at Daryl who was hiding behind his hair again. Dawn didn’t confront her on the fact that they were together. In fact, she seemed far too adept at choosing her battles. Beth knew she would have to fuck up at some point.

“What about,” said Beth.

“Why don’t you go see Joan,” Dawn said to Daryl. “I think you two will get along. I’ll send Beth when I’m finished here.”

Daryl was taking Beth’s cues. She was tolerated here, and he was not. 

“Beth?” said Dawn.

“Fine.” She squeezed Daryl’s hand like it was a baby animal, then let it go. “It’ll be okay. Joan knows about you. Just tell her who you are.”

“I’ll be waitin,” said Daryl. He looked at Dawn as if he might bring down the wrath of god upon her.

Beth hated this place, but she knew Daryl and how he must have hated it so much more.

Dawn took Beth to a sunny room with many plants and UV lamps. There were pots of tomatoes and strawberries and even corn and a row of cabbage. Somebody had even hung up a stained glass window to catch the light and throw it against the wall in different colors. The design was that of a Magnolia Tree. They sat across from one another in wooden chairs by a large window. Dawn had prepared tea. Beth sat demurely with her hands folded in her lap . She stared down at her knees in blue scrubs.

“Milk? Sugar?” said Dawn, pouring the tea. It was a dark, oily color.

“No thanks,” said Beth. She looked out the window. All she saw was a long, flat rooftop.

“Suit yourself,” said Dawn. She placed a napkin in her own lap. Beth didn't see any biscuits or sandwiches.

“What do you want, Dawn.”

“I want to know more about Daryl.” She sipped the tea, placed the cup in the saucer. The tea set was not fancy, but it was nice, with little patterns of pink flowers and bees. It reminded Beth of something her momma might have kept around.

“Why,” said Beth.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Beth did not answer. She looked down at her white, plaster cast. She was picking at the edges with her thumb nail.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s none of your business,” said Beth.

“I see,” said Dawn.

The windows to the hospital were thick glass. You couldn’t hear any sounds from outside. You could hear only the UV lights and the refrigeration and H-Vac noises and humming fixtures of the hospital. Beth felt like she was living in a microwave oven.

“How long have you known him?” said Dawn.

“A while.” Beth scratched at the skin on her knuckles. She had been doing that a lot. It was red and a little irritated.

“So if he’s not your boyfriend, what is he? Your friend?”

“What is this?” said Beth. “A sleepover?”

“You don’t have to get so defensive. I’m just asking.”

“Why would any of this matter to you?”

“He seems older than you. Is he?”

“What do you think?” said Beth. "And anyway, I'm 18. Don't need your permission."

“Good point.” Dawn sipped more of her tea. She poured more into her glass, stirred in a sugar cube.

“I know what you’re doin,” said Beth.

Dawn ignored her. “So, do you see a future with him? Summer wedding? Two kids running around in the yard...”

“You’re pathetic.”

“Futures are pretty scarce these days," said Dawn, getting serious. “Beth, I can help you. But you need to listen to me. We’ve gone over this, haven't we? You don't seem to understand. I know this is hard, and you're young, but there is no future, not like you dream, not with Daryl.”

“What would you know about my dreams?”

“You trust him.”

“I trust him more than anybody,” said Beth. “You don’t know anything about that. You don't know what real trust is.”

“Is that right?”

“Together, we’ve survived worse than this hellhole. And we will again.”

Dawn dabbed her mouth with a white napkin. “After everything, he just seems a little beneath you. That's all.”

This made Beth laugh. She lost her composure, felt deranged. “You’re such a fucking bitch. First he’s too old, now he’s beneath me?”

“He’s trash,” said Dawn. “Plain and simple. We used to pick up guys like him all the time.”

“Daryl ain’t trash,” said Beth. She felt her muscles tensing, like she was made of cords. “I don’t know what you think you know about him, or me. Maybe you think I’m some fancy belle. Drinkin tea in the garden on a Sunday, out of cups that look like they been lifted from the local Macy’s." She picked up her cup off the saucer, brazenly, dumped it out on the table cloth. "Maybe you thought you could ingratiate yourself with me, using finer things you think I might care about. Like Dr. Edwards and his stupid record player. But it’s been a long time since I had any finer things, and I ain’t who you think I am. And don't ever call Daryl anything but what he is. He’s a good man. He helps people, unlike the scum reprobates you got workin here. And not that it matters, but he ain’t never been to jail.”

“Is that what he told you?”

Beth reared back with her right hand and slapped Dawn as hard as she could across the face. It was loud. It shook the whole table. It felt good. Then she stood up, looking down over that pathetic display. “How do you like it, Dawn?”

Meanwhile, back in Joan’s room, Daryl was leaning against a kitchen mop, feeling dreamy, looking out the window at the city grid. God he hated Atlanta. The people, walking shoulder to shoulder, the mean heat in summer, the ugliness of the streets.

At some point, Joan woke up. She seemed startled by his presence.

So he set the mop aside, held up his hands. He knew what he must have looked like in a place like this. “I’m Beth’s friend,” he said right away. “I’m Daryl. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

She settled back into the pillow. Her hair was curly. She turned her head to look out the window. “Daryl, huh?”

"Yeah."

“Beth told me all about you,” said Joan. “Your motorcycle, your crossbow. Your blue eyes.”

Daryl didn’t know what to say.

“She ever sing for you?” said Joan.

Daryl had picked up that mop again and was studying the wood grain in its handle. _Little songbird._ “Yes, ma'am.”

“It’s real nice, right?” said Joan. “It’s why I asked for her. I just…like it sometimes.”

“I do, too.”

“Did you know her from before?”

“No,” said Daryl. “I met her on her dad’s farm, maybe a year and half ago.”

“She from outside the city?”

“Coweta County,” said Daryl. “Senoia.”

Joan sighed. “Fancy place.”

"Maybe once."

They smiled together.

“You from Atlanta?” said Daryl, leaning on that mop.

“Not originally,” said Joan. “I’m from Tennessee. I was living with my cousin in Atlanta when it happened.”

“East, West, or Middle Tennessee?”

“East Tennessee. Greene County.”

“I heard that’s real pretty country over there,” said Daryl. “The Smoky Mountains.”

“I miss it,” said Joan.

Noah walked by, in the hallway. He was pushing an old man with white hair in a wheelchair. He saluted to Daryl, kept on his way.

“You know your crossbow is in Dawn’s office,” said Joan. “I saw it this morning. I wasn’t supposed to be out of bed, but fuck them.”

Daryl put down the mop again, placed his hand on the stubble getting longer on his chin. “Which one is Dawn’s office?”

“Locked door, next to the break room. But you can pop the lock if you have a screwdriver.”

“You got one for me?”

“Over there, taped underneath the cabinets.”

Daryl felt under the cabinets like she said, peeled out the flathead screwdriver with a yellow handle, dropped it into his pocket. “Thanks.”

“She’s got a whole shit ton of candy in there,” said Joan. “Grab some for me, will you?”

“Sure,” said Daryl. “We’re gonna get the hell out of here. You should come with us. We got a group we need to find. They’re okay. I mean, they’re good people.”

Joan smiled in a wistful way, like she was thinking about the past. “Thanks. But I’m good.”

“That guy, Gorman—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say his name. Please.”

Daryl cracked his knuckles once. “I won’t.”

“I’ve heard them talking, Daryl. They don’t like you, because they don’t know what to do with you. Probably thought they could break you, but it don't look like they can.”

“They gonna try and kill me?”

She shrugged.

“Yeah well I been under fire before. I’m used to not being wanted.”

“You and Beth should go,” said Joan. “As soon as possible. You don't belong here, and they know it. They’ll hurt you, and they’ll hurt her for defending you.”

“Already did hurt me,” said Daryl. “Pretty sure them assholes ran me down in their car on purpose.”

“It’s one of their tactics,” said Joan.

“Come with us,” said Daryl.

She looked down at her lost arm, the sad space on the bed where it had used to be. She shook her head, like there was something really wrong. “Just send in Beth when you can, one more time before you go.” She was filled with goodbyes. “I really do like her singing.”

“Okay,” said Daryl.

“Thank you.”

Daryl went out into the empty hallway, the white, unnatural fluorescent lights. He followed Joan’s instruction and started fiddling with the door to Dawn’s office. He noticed Noah and the old man in the wheelchair staring at him from the opposite end, so he said, “Hey. Hey, make a distraction or something, will you?”

Noah was amused, but then he became serious. He whispered something into the old man’s ear while Daryl popped the lock with the screwdriver. Then the old man tipped over in his wheelchair and started moaning.

“Help! Help!” said Noah.

Daryl slid inside the office and closed the door behind him, real gingerly.

When he got back to his room with the one window and no bed, Beth was there, sitting on the floor, with her knees pulled up, staring at her cast. She looked pretty, like always, real mild with big eyes, her hair hanging over her shoulder like that loose yellow curtain from his dreams, but she seemed ashamed. When she looked up to see him, he noticed she had a new bruise under her eye, looking like she’d been punched, or backhanded, and this alarmed him. He held her chin with his thumb and tried to give it a one-over but she wouldn’t let him. She said, “I’m fine, Daryl.”

He didn't press her. He had his crossbow over his shoulder. This giant hospital box was starting to drill holes into his nerves. 

He reached into his pocket, found a handful of suckers he’d stolen from Dawn’s office. He gave them to her, like a bouquet of flowers, made sure to leave a couple behind for Joan. “We’re leaving tonight,” he said. “Say your goodbyes.”

She took the suckers, admiring. She picked through them, took out one that was sour-apple flavor, looked at it for a second with contempt, then set it down on the floor and crushed it under the heel of her Converse. “What about Noah?” she said.

“Noah’s coming,” said Daryl, unsure what to make of her once again. “Don't worry.”

Strange, pretty girl. She contained multitudes. 


	4. Hitchhikers May Be Escaping Inmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cw: suicide, grief_

_The Future_

Glenn stood alone by the sapphire pool, looking across to the other side. The grasses were growing tall, yellow and green. He was holding a clean, pressed black suit jacket under one arm, and when Daryl approached, he said simply, “Good morning.”

There were two swans, floating royally in the pool. The weather was warm, and the sky was clear, and you could hear the cicadas in the trees. Daryl had his hands in his pockets. He wore a white shirt that Rick had salvaged out of a department store, still standing somewhere outside Alexandria proper. It was Michonne who’d let the shoulders out. Daryl was somewhat big across the back, too big for a lot of standard men’s sizes. Michonne was surprisingly good with needle and thread.

“How long you been standing here,” said Daryl, looking at the swans.

“Just a couple minutes,” said Glenn. He had his hair combed. So did Daryl. He showed Daryl the jacket. “Kept it safe for you.”

“Thanks, brother.”

Glenn helped him into the jacket, one arm at a time. As Daryl adjusted the sleeves, Glenn reached into his pocket. He took out Hershel’s silver watch, polished and looking brand new. It was a relic. It was a symbol of the past.

“This is for you,” said Glenn.

Daryl looked him over, took the watch, ran his thumb over the smooth face. He had seen it, but he had never held it before. “Hershel gave this to you.”

“And now I’m giving it to you,” said Glenn. “I got to have it for a long time. It kept me safe. Now, it’s your turn.”

Daryl was uneasy. He looked into his reflection in the pool. He did look older, it was true. But so did everybody. “I can’t take it.”

“Yes, you can,” said Glenn. He had his hands in his pockets now, and he was smirking, full of confidence. “It’s a gift. It would be rude not to accept.”

Daryl held the watch up to his ear. He could hear its heartbeat, steady and strong. He looked at the hands, the little one on the twelve, the big one on the six. He closed his fist around the watch. It was heavy. He placed it in his pocket and turned back to the pool. “Wouldn’t wanna be rude.”

“I agree.”

“I miss him something awful,” said Daryl. “The old man. I wish he was here.”

“I miss him, too,” said Glenn. He placed his hand on Daryl’s shoulder. "But he is here, just not in ways we understand."

“Thank you,” said Daryl.

“You’re welcome, brother.”

“Hey.” It was Rick, he was coming down from the gazebo. He had trimmed his beard and had a little cluster of Virginia Bluebells pinned to his collar. He was wearing suspenders. He looked like a regular dandy. “Come on. Father Gabriel says it’s time.”

“Coming,” said Daryl.

As they were headed back toward the town, away from the pool and the swans, Glenn said to Daryl, “You nervous?”

Daryl was looking up at the sky. There were no clouds, and the sun was a holy entity, a flock of geese headed south in a flying V. He’d been nervous before. He’d been a lot of things. “Hell no.”

_The Escape_

That night, Beth went to see Joan. She brought her a strawberry sucker and Joan just sat holding it in her mouth while Beth tidied up and sang songs from her memory. Some of them were crap songs she had written. Some of them were old, reruns from when her daddy was alive. While she sang _The Parting Glass,_ wiping the dust off the windowsill, Joan fell asleep. Beth left the room then and went back to the greenhouse, where she clipped some roses to set in water. She wanted to bring something pretty for Joan’s bedside, something nice to wake up to in the morning. But it was sad, because it felt hopeless. Every morning was the same here. She sat down at the table where she had previously sat with Dawn, having fake tea, and she looked up at the Magnolia Tree in the stained glass window, and she started to cry. Then she made herself stop, then she started again. Then she set her forehead down on her hands, and she stopped for good. She fell asleep for a little while.

Meanwhile, Joan woke up. The room was warm and dark, peaceful, just one candle burning and making a low, brassy light. She unplugged the patient monitor from the wall, and while looking at the candle and thinking about Beth's singing, she took her stitches out one by one.

About thirty minutes later, she turned, and when Officer Gorman went in to check on her, she bit him, and his screams created pandemonium in the hallways. Beth was standing now, holding the red roses in a mason jar, which she had stolen from the doctor’s office and turned into a vase, and she watched while a bunch of people rushed past, and she just knew what was going on. She dropped the roses in the jar, which shattered in a million pieces on the floor, and she thought about death. How it could come so quickly, and even when it was quiet, it was never quiet. It was never peaceful or the right thing. Not anymore.

She was leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, trying not to fall down. She felt hopeless again. She hated this. But then, there was Daryl. He grabbed her hand. He smoothed it in his rough palm, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb, bringing her back to him.

“Beth,” he was saying. “Beth. Come on, girl.”

“What?” she said. She woke up. She stood straight, and she was staring at him. He held his crossbow over his shoulder.

He said, “It’s time. We gotta go.”

She didn’t ask questions. He lead her down the hall, away from Joan’s room, away from the yelling and the chaos. As they went, Shepherd was there, like she was keeping watch for them, ushering. She nodded at Beth, like she knew what was up. She was helping. Beth didn’t know how to thank her. She couldn’t. There was no time. She took off her bracelet. She gave it to her. She said, “Thank you.”

Noah was already at the elevator shaft. He had prepared a long rope, made of bedsheets. They climbed down. Daryl went last, and when they got to the bottom where the bodies were piled, Shepherd untied the rope and tossed it down. No evidence. Then she tossed down a handgun and two clips. Daryl picked it up, loaded the gun, gave it to Beth, along with the clips, which she stored in her pockets. Then Shepherd was gone.

Daryl used the shiv from Noah to sliced up one of the dead walkers at the bottom of the shaft. The smell was so awful. Beth had gotten used to it, at the prison, but not anymore. Noah was untying the sheets, cut some holes in them. They all set them over their heads, like smocks, and then they went about covering themselves. The blood, the raw insides, the rotten stench, all of it. They drew lines of walker blood under their eyes, like war paint. When it was done, they all held hands, Daryl first with a flashlight, and they followed one another through the basement, which was haunted with the dead who did not notice them. Not one. When they found the exit, they ascended into the dead of night, and a parking lot. They went slow, still holding hands, pressed together with their elbows touching. Daryl stayed out ahead. They found a long cut in the chainlink, squeezed through, one at a time. Then they held hands again. There were more walkers out here, but it was dark. Daryl killed the flashlight. They followed the light of the moon, slow. Beth kept her eyes open the whole time, no matter how bad she wanted to close them.

 _Closing your eyes is for little girls_ , thought Beth. _Closing your eyes means fear, and fear means the end._

The gate was chained closed up ahead, and there were too many walkers. Daryl told her and Noah not to let go. Not for anything. Stay together, be quiet. They would make it.

Daryl had to take just one of them out with his crossbow, once they got to the fence. He lost the bolt, couldn’t go back. He pushed the gates, stretching the chains to make a space. He ushered Noah through, then Beth. He went in last. On the other side, there was a massive, graffiti’d semi. Daryl led them around to an alley where they left the sounds of the dead behind. There were strays up ahead, a couple walkers who noticed them by the sounds of their footsteps. Daryl took one out with the shiv, then tossed it to Noah who killed another. Beth stood back. She had the handgun. She held it up, shot one in the head. It had been coming on Daryl from behind, where he couldn’t see. When he heard the gunshot, he turned around, saw the dead walker on the sidewalk. He said, “Let’s go.”

They took off the blood-stained sheets, left them to rot in the alley. But they found only locked doors. Daryl couldn’t kick them down, and they couldn’t risk more gunfire. Ahead, Noah jumped up to free a ladder, which lead to a fire escape. They climbed, crawled through an open window into an abandoned apartment complex. The first unit they entered was shook alive by their footsteps, two walkers from the bathroom. Daryl took one out, but the other got past. Beth ducked. It lost its balance and fell against the window. She kicked out its legs, then when it was on the floor, she stomped its skull out with her heel. It was dead, and her shoe was dirty.

They all stood around, staring at each other, listening. Beth and Noah were still in blue scrubs. The apartment was clear. Daryl closed the window. The door to the hallway was already boarded shut from the inside. They listened through the walls. They couldn’t hear anything—no scratching, no moaning, no voices. Daryl found some candles in the bathroom. Beth found a box of Fig Newtons in the kitchen. Noah hung sheets over the windows. They lit the candles, set them all on the coffee table in the living room, then they sat around it on the carpeted floor. The candles were all different scents and were bringing the room together into a fragrant, floral bouquet. Beth opened the Fig Newtons, set them in the middle of the table like a feast. They ate them all, drank water from the sink. It was still running.

At some point, Noah fell asleep on the sofa. Beth fell asleep leaning against it. Daryl had been sitting beside her. When she was gone to the world, he tucked a little bit of the hair out of her face and behind her ear, looked at her, full of tenderness. Then he got up to snoop out the windows and keep watch. He sat in a kitchen chair, staring easterly, alone, waiting for the sun to rise.

He nodded off at some point, dreamed of nothing. Just blackness. He was too tired to dream. His brain was emptied whole. Survival will do that. It won’t let you have pretty thoughts, nor adventurous dreams. When he woke up, it was morning. Beth was sitting in her own chair, pushed up beside him. She was holding the gun in her right hand, set in her lap, wide awake.

When he straightened up, she looked at him. She was relieved. She hunched a little. She said, “We made it.”

Noah was still sleeping on the couch, all draped out like a puppy dog. Daryl got up to pull the sheet back off the window, let the sun shine through. There were maybe a dozen crows out there, perched on a power line. More were flying around overhead. The city looked endless from here, but he knew exactly where they were. “We still gotta get outta Atlanta,” said Daryl. “And it weren’t no picnic the last time.”

“The last time?”

“With Rick,” said Daryl, looking right at her. “Right before we found you.”

She remembered, all the way back, the first time they came to the farm. Carl had been shot. It was an accident. But he almost died. In the beginning, she barely noticed Daryl. He was gone all the time, by his lonesome in the woods for miles, looking for Carol’s daughter, Sophia. It seemed a million years ago now, another life, when Shane had opened up those barn doors.

“Joan’s dead,” said Beth. She looked down at the gun. Her hand was shaking. “I think she might've killed herself.”

“I know,” said Daryl. “I heard the sounds of her turning. I followed that asshole, Gorman, to make sure he wasn’t gonna try nothing. And I was going to give her these.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out another handful of suckers, like the ones he’d given Beth. He set them down on the windowsill. They both sat and stared at the suckers, all the pretty colors. Beth realized that she had left hers, back at the hospital.

“She shouldn't have done it,” said Beth. “I could've done something. I feel sad.”

“There was nothing you coulda done,” he said. “She deserved better, but she was all out of hope. I tried getting her to come with us, Beth. I did. She wouldn’t have it. She wanted us to get out though. She told me. And she liked you. Liked your singin.”

Beth sucked her tears back, found resolve. “We gotta keep going then. We gotta, for her. But how?”

“I was thinkin,” said Daryl, "we could head south, back toward the prison, back where we left off. Maybe from there, we could pick up a trail. It ain’t been that long. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“That sounds good.”

He set his palm on her knee, held it loosely, just for a moment. He took a deep breath, feeling her warmth on his skin. He was comforting her, and testing the waters. She placed her hand on his. His heart was beating real fast. He could feel her looking at him, but he was looking at their hands, afraid of what he might feel, actually swimming in her eyes.

“Hey,” said Noah. He came over, stretching and rubbing his face, oblivious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep like that.”

Daryl took his hand back, quickly, placed it on the handle of his crossbow. Beth stuck her hand back in her lap. “Don't worry about it,” said Daryl. “We got a long day ahead of us.”

“You take those from Dawn’s office?” said Noah, pointing to the suckers. “Nice.”

“Those are for Joan,” said Beth.

He froze, remembering. The colors reflected off the candy like stained glass in the solemn morning sun.

_The Return_

They were walking in the middle of the street, in the mid-afternoon urban air. It was hot outside. The buildings, the street, everything was blanched in daylight and it felt like you could fry an egg on the asphalt. They were sweating, exhausted, were able to sneak around most of the dead, which were sluggish with the heat, but Daryl’s crossbow came in handy, especially at a distance. It seemed like a lot of the herds that had been moving through the city last time he was here, they were gone.

Daryl found a set of giant pliers, broke the chains on a door leading to the back warehouse of a Target. There were walkers wandering the aisles, which he lured into a single corner of the store by throwing firecrackers. Beth and Noah roamed together, meanwhile, finding new clothes and gathering as much food as they could. Beth left her scrubs folded neatly in the changing room. She venerated them as vessels of change but never wanted to see them again. She put on a clean gray t-shirt with a new pair of jeans. She stole a purple JanSport backpack, stuffed a black sweatshirt inside plus a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon she'd found stashed in a cooler, some instant coffee, a box of Cliff bars, and a pack of cigarettes looted from the pocket of a dead stock boy. She thanked him for his gift, found a spray of plastic lilies in the garden department, and set it on his body in memoriam. The cigarettes were for Daryl. She also picked up a baby teether, in the shape of a giraffe, still in its box, and a couple comic books. _Just in case,_ she thought. It all fit neatly in her backpack.

Once they were done, they made a break for it. The firecrackers were drawing walkers from all over the block, and so they climbed another fire escape ladder up to the second floor of an adjacent office building. They got up to the roof, went rooftop to rooftop like a band of thieves until they got out of harm’s way. By then it was night. The city was beginning to spread out. They found an Auto-Zone where Daryl was sure he would be able to hotwire them a working car. They found a silver BMW with the keys in the ignition. Daryl started it up, and they all got inside, Beth sitting shotgun and Noah in the backseat.

Daryl took a deep breath. He adjusted the seat, smoothed his hands along the steering wheel, fixed the rearview mirror.

“This is the nicest goddam car I’ve ever been in,” he said, shifting into reverse. "Jesus Christ." 

“Me, too,” said Noah.

“Me, three,” said Beth.

They all looked at each other in the dying light of the early evening. It was all a kind of understanding between them. Once they got on the road, Daryl drove slowly, quietly, south. They were close to the city limits now. They would get out by sundown, out of this filthy, stifling hell, find a place to shack up in the open country by the time the moon got high. These were familiar streets with familiar signs they all recognized. Daryl and Beth knew how to navigate them by now. They would all do the best they could with what they could find, looking for signs of Rick, Michonne, anybody. And if the trail went cold, they promised Noah they’d head back east, toward Richmond. They held their heads high. They had escaped Atlanta with their lives, new clothes, food, their freedom. Whatever came, they weren’t planning on dying anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Part 1
> 
> Next Up - _Part 2: Country Roads_


	5. Hope, and Other Remedies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **PART 2: COUNTRY ROADS**

They made it as far as Fayetteville, spent the night in the guard’s barracks of a local nature preserve. Daryl took down a rabbit and two squirrels, and they ate like kings. But the cooking fire drew walkers, so they got overrun by dawn. They lost the highway on their way south, due to a ton of downed trees blocking the road—looked like lightning—and so they had to cut over into the backwoods, passing some of the biggest, wealthiest looking Georgia properties they’d ever seen. Daryl hadn’t ever really seen back country look this beautiful until he met Beth.

They ended up in a sub-development where it looked like a small community had once thrived behind its walls. There were tents and a medical truck, even a humvee. But walkers shuffled through almost shoulder to shoulder now. There was no getting in or out. Whatever once lived here didn’t live anymore.

They got back on the 85 South and the terrain was getting more and more rural. Daryl knew that they were close to the Greene family farm as soon as Beth put her head down and stared at her knees. She was clutching the little heart charm on her necklace, sitting perfectly still. Daryl left it alone. He had been there, had seen everything she lost, and everything there was to say, it had already been said, or else it was pointless. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other hanging out the window. Noah was slouched in the backseat, just going on faith alone, his forehead tipped against the glass, his eyes half-shut in the morning sun. They had all been through too much. They were all exhausted.

At some point, they ended up on a familiar stretch, and in the near distance through the woods, they could see a huge plume of smoke, mostly white, rising up out of the trees and dispersing to the sky. Beth straightened up right away when they saw it. Daryl stopped the car, put it into park and let it idle for a while. He thought it could not be, but of course it was.

“What is that,” said Beth.

He looked at her. She had all of her hair braided now, over her right shoulder. It was curly and getting unruly around the temples. “It’s the shine shack,” he said. He looked back at the smoke.

Beth took off her seatbelt. This seemed to shock her. She got out of the car, which didn’t bother Daryl, but Noah seemed confused.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Daryl?”

Daryl sighed as Beth crawled up on top of the hood to get a better view. The car lurched a little bit, under her weight. “It’s a long story, man.”

You could hear Beth swearing. Daryl sighed, got out slowly, leaned against the open door, and gazed up at her. She was looking out past the trees into the naked wilderness, the fire beyond. Something was wrong.

“We did that,” she said.

Daryl took a deep breath, disappointed but also, deep down, he was mildly impressed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“The color of the smoke,” she said. “I don't even think it's out yet. Daryl, it’s been days.”

“Well, we poured a lot of booze into that place before lighting it up. Probably burned for a while, which drew walkers, who tracked the fire all through the trees.”

“You guys gonna tell me where we are?” said Noah. He was hanging halfway out the car, looking somewhat resigned.

Daryl hauled out his crossbow, tossed Beth her backpack. She hopped down from the hood and started fixing her hair, using her reflection in the wing mirror. It was falling to pieces. The braid was coming loose.

"We’re here,” said Daryl.

“I don’t see a prison,” said Noah. “Wouldn’t that be kind of obvious?”

“We can’t go back to the actual prison,” said Beth. “The prison is—it’s gone.”

“Look at the road here,” said Daryl. “Beth. Remember that trail we found, with the grapes?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I do. But it was a dead end. I hated that day. You hated that day. I’ll never forget it.”

“Well, it’s the only thing we got now,” said Daryl. “We cut through here, we’ll find some train tracks. Maybe I can pick up something from there. If Rick’s alive, he’ll try to find a central place, something obvious.”

“Is that safe?” said Noah. “Leaving the road?”

Daryl was already out ahead of them both, sticking his head in the trees, listening and looking for signs of the dead. “Probably not. Let’s go.”

They followed the smoke, poking through the forest, quiet as they could. Beth caught up with Daryl. He was moving fast, like he was on a mission. But the woods felt haunted. It really hadn’t been that long since the prison, but being in Atlanta made it feel longer, and far away. Now that they were here, back in Coweta County, retracing their old steps, standing in the dirt where so much had happened, Beth sensed ghosts. Everywhere. All around. And inside, she was filled with a tremendous weight. She grabbed Daryl by the forearm, held him there.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Nothin,” said Beth, lowering her voice. “Nothin’s wrong. I just—don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“We was here, Daryl. You and me. The same exact spot. And you was…hopeless.”

“Hopeless?”

“Yeah,” said Beth. “I was the one who was pushing us to find survivors then, not you. And then, we didn’t find nobody.”

“Yeah we did,” said Daryl. He glanced back at Noah, who was acting as the third wheel. He hung back a little. He had the gun, pulling up the rear, making sure they weren’t being followed.

“You know what I mean,” said Beth.

“I remember,” said Daryl. “I remember how I was, what happened. All that dumb stuff I said. But I'm sorry, and things changed.”

“When?”

“When we started that goddam fire,” said Daryl. “And the damn funeral home. You were writing that stupid letter. We was talking, right before it happened. I thought you remembered, too.”

“I do,” she said. "I thought I did."

“Then why you holding us back? You knew what we was doing when we left Atlanta.”

“I’m not holding us back,” she said. “I just—Daryl.”

“What?”

“Guys,” said Noah. “Guys. Shut up.”

The forest shuddered all around them. A great wind blew past, smelling like smoke. Up ahead, there were walkers. Five of them, stumbling through the trees. From far away, they looked like specters, or dead trees on their feet. As they got closer, it became clear. They were burnt to black.

“Wait here,” said Daryl.

“No,” said Beth. “I can do it.”

“I know you can, I just—I can take um.”

“We got this,” said Noah. 

It happened fast. Daryl took out two before they even got close, then a third. Noah got one, kicked its legs out, hulled it with the shiv. Beth got the last one against a tree, got her knife deep in its brains but as she was pulling it back, something happened. She must’ve hit it just right, because the head all but exploded. The walker went down, and she backed away, blood on her new t-shirt, in her hair, on her face. She spat and tried wiping it off with her wrists, but it was no use. She just smudged it around a whole bunch, almost made it worse.

It was funny, in a way. She was stumbling around, a tall, pretty bird, so dirty. Daryl didn’t laugh though. He just whipped the bandana out of his back pocket, very debonair. He handed it to her. “You got somethin on your face.”

“Shut up, Daryl.”

Noah was sitting, his hands covered in bloody char. He was laughing. He stuffed the handgun into the back of his jeans, the shiv in his belt, then got up and went past them, to check the clearing ahead. “We’re all good,” he said. “Catch up when you’re ready. Good job, everyone.”

Beth made a face. She took the bandana from Daryl. She shook it out, started wiping down her face and her arms, shamelessly. Daryl watched out the corner of his eye, chewing a piece of bark, leaning on a tree. He was cleaning the bloodied up bolts on his sleeve, stowing them back into place. When she finished as best she could, she shoved the bandana into his chest and went ahead to follow Noah.

“Hey,” said Daryl. “Slow down.”

She turned around to look at him, still covered in carnage, looking pissed off and flustered like a duckling out of water. Her braid was totally undone. The blood was smudged on her cheeks, her neck. “Why,” she said.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said, self-conscious all of a sudden, looking down at his hands. When things were easy, Beth was easy. He knew what to do, how to make her smile, but he also knew her well enough to understand that she could get dark sometimes, get sad.

“What’s gonna be okay.”

“What we’re doin,” he said. “Looking for Rick. Don’t lose hope.”

“I know,” she said.

He knew what was up, how it went. “I know you know. You just gotta remember.” He went past her, patting her on the back. “You look real cute.”

“Shut up.”

“You do.”

She shoved him. He pretended to lose his balance, to humor her. They were smiling again. Up ahead, through the trees, Noah was standing in front of a plain little house with dingy olive siding peeling around the shutters. It was nestled in some sort of orchard, or grove, and very idyllic. Daryl went out ahead. He got down on his knees, felt a hand over the loose dirt on the walk. Something was raining off the trees, some sort of nut. Looked like a walnut, but it wasn't. He picked up a few off the ground. He held them in his hand.

“What are those?” said Beth.

“Look like pecans,” said Noah

“A pecan grove?”

Daryl pocketed the pecans, got up. “Somebody was here, not that long ago. Maybe a couple days. The dirt is loose along the walk. There’s footprints.”

“They look livin,” said Beth. She was right there with him. “These footprints. They’re ordered, not like walkers.”

“Good eye,” he said, making his way up the porch, peeking in the windows. “You’ll be trackin in no time.”

“Yeah, well. You taught me.”

“We only just got started,” said Daryl. “There’s a lot to learn.” He popped open the front door, banged on it a few times with his crossbow to draw attention.

The house was quiet.

“I like this place,” said Noah. “It’s…peaceful.”

“Seems clear,” said Daryl. “There’s even a well.”

They went inside.

Noah pumped a couple buckets of water while Daryl took inventory of food and supplies. There wasn’t a lot, but there was shelter, creature comforts like books, blankets, and a fireplace, water, a small selection of dried fruit, and an endless supply of pecans.

The house was cozy. There were big, soft blankets folded neatly on the couch, arm chairs, even a rocking chair, and a crib in the living room. The kitchen was clean, mostly. It looked like somebody had been roasting pecans in the oven, then left in a hurry. The dirty cookie sheet was still in the sink, but everything else was wiped down and dusted. There was a rag doll, over by the fireplace. It had been discarded. She picked it up, smoothed its dress and its red yarn hair. It was sweet, like something out of a storybook. If it were smaller, Beth would have thought to take it when them. But it would have taken up too much space in her backpack. She set it gently on the couch.

“Hey, Beth,” said Daryl. He was standing next to the wall, looking over the crib. It was sturdy and wooden.

She went and stood next to him. Still covered in guts, she felt like a moron, but he didn't actually care. She knew. Noah was in the kitchen, boiling water. You could hear the kettle start hissing on the stove.

“What is it?” she said.

“The sheets here,” he said, pointing to the crib, “they’re mussed, and clean. Ain’t no dust. This whole place is clean. Like it’s been lived in, recently.”

Beth looked back at the rag doll, then to the crib. Her heart was beating. “You think…?”

“Don’t know,” said Daryl, scratching at his chin. “Maybe.”

Beth went to the bathroom with her backpack and one bucket of cool water, to clean up. She took off her shirt, soaked it in the sink, then left it hanging over the shower curtain rod, to drip dry. She rinsed out her hair, washed her face, scrubbed the blood out of her cuticles and the creases of her palms. She put on the black hoodie from Target, zipped it up, and looked in the mirror. She didn't have a brush. Forgetting to grab one while they were in Atlanta was a mistake. She started rifling through the drawers, found a couple coated rubber bands, some safety pins, a bottle of hand lotion, things she took, put in her backpack, and then she prayed for whoever it was had left them there, prayed for their souls, thanked them. She found a hairbrush in the bottom drawer, but it was all fucked up. Looked melted, like somebody had left it too close to a curling iron. Defeated, she started combing through her hair with her fingers. It was a rat's nest. Once she got it smooth enough, she tied it back into a pony tail, no braid.

When she was finished, she looked out the window. It was small, but she had a view of the back porch, and the yard beyond. It was full of yellow wildflowers, and more pecan trees. She smiled. But then something else caught her eye. 

She couldn't tell what she was seeing at first, not through the window. So she dropped her stuff and rushed through the living room, to the screen door, which she swung open loudly and Daryl and Noah started following after, saying her name, like they were confused. She went outside into the late summer air, stood on the steps to the back porch all by herself, then the boys side-by-side, behind her. It was what she had feared, when she first saw it through the bathroom window. It was a little graveyard, five little graves. They were all so little.

She could hear Daryl, swearing under his breath. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she didn't want it there. She shook it off. She went down the stairs, got to her knees in the grass. Three of the graves were marked with crosses, bound together with sticks. One of the crosses had baby shoes, hanging by their laces. But those graves were old. The other two were fresh, marked with bouquets of yellow flowers that had not yet begun to wilt. Beth was slow to absorb the imagery. The loose dirt, the shoes, the flowers. 

She sat down on the bottom step. She started to cry.

Daryl felt frozen inside. Something like this always had to happen. This house in this grove, it was like a testament to their entire lives. Things seem okay for a while, even perfect, but underneath it's all rotten. It's filled with death. He glanced to Noah, who looked shocked. Not by the graveyard, but to see Beth crying. He didn't know her that well. To him, she was just the feisty blond who had the guts to slap Dawn in the face. 

Noah whispered, "What's happening?"

Daryl shook his head. 

He sat down beside her, hesitant at first. When she didn't turn away, he put his arm around her shoulders, and he pet her hair, keeping it off her face as she wept softly against him. He prayed to god they didn’t know nobody buried here, looking at those little shoes, the fresh dirt and the flowers. He knew it wouldn’t matter anyway. That’s not the only reason she was crying. It was like a snowball effect. Once you let one sad thought in, the rest came sticking. It could have been anyone in those graves. Anyone that small. Didn’t have to be Judith. But it could have been. He looked down at his shoes as he held her. They were dirty, the soles wearing thin. 

The sky was getting dark, getting gray. Noah leaned in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. After a little while, he went inside, knowing there was nothing he could do out there. Whatever had happened, whatever was happening with Daryl and Beth, it was not about him. He was a part of it now, but it seemed like there was so much more. Layers of loss between them, behind them, but also goodness. He chose to be practical, to solve something he knew how. He went back to the grove, started scavenging as many pecans as he could, filled a whole wicker basket. Then, inside, he trimmed them up and started cracking them with the pliers, one by one. He lit the stove, tossed the pecans on the cookie sheet, which he'd wiped clean with a rag. Then he stuck them in the oven, and he sat down to drink a glass of water, eat a couple dried peaches, and wait. 

Beth gave up after a little while, on her crying. It was starting to get dark outside. She felt drained. She felt stupid, too, all of a sudden. She apologized, looking down at her mismatched shoelaces.

"Don't be sorry," said Daryl. He had been quiet, and solemn. Now that she was sitting up straight, he leaned back against the step, on his elbows. He had one firecracker left in his pocket, leftover from Target, as well as a handful of feathers that he had collected along the way. He was saving the feathers for later, to fletch a couple new bolts for his bow. But she was watching him, glassy-eyed, drying her eyes on her sleeves. She seemed calm. So he took the feathers out, showed them to her. She was charmed by the feathers. Little things like that, simple things, pretty things, they made her happy, and for it, she was unashamed, and he was grateful.

"I remember when I told you I didn't cry anymore," said Beth. "After Zach."

"Yeah, well. That was a long time ago."

"Ever since Grady," she said. "I been losing hope, Daryl. I don't know why."

"You know why," said Daryl, picking through the feathers, one by one. "You remember when I was looking for Sophia, all them months ago? It weren't that far from here."

"I know," said Beth. "I remember."

"I looked everywhere," said Daryl. "Down in the ravines, in the woods, the river. Got impaled by my own bolt, falling down a goddam hill. I was straight up hallucinating. That's how messed up I was, in the head. I remember Carol, too. She was different back then. She was strong, but it was still deep inside her. She hadn't started to...show it yet. Live it. She was just a victim. I ain't blaming her. I never did, not for what she went through. For what she overcame. I'm proud of her. But there was this one day, I'd been out, all day, lookin for Sophia. And I found this old farmhouse, kinda like this. But bigger, and worse. Inside, there was a lot of junk. But I found a tin of sardines that had just been opened. And there was a little blanket and a pillow in the pantry. I went outside. I was calling out for her, over and over again. And as I was shouting her name, I saw this flower, a Cherokee Rose, growing nearby. There were no more signs of Sophia, so I picked one of them flowers and I brought it back, and I gave it to Carol. She was losing hope. So I told her a story, about the Cherokee Rose. State flower of Georgia. A real long, sad story, about the Trail of Tears. I told it to her so that she wouldn't forget to have hope, would keep having hope, even when it all seemed lost, all seemed dark."

"You gonna tell me a story?" said Beth.

"No," he said. "I ain't, not today. Because we both know what happened to Sophia. Stories don't change the truth. They just make it seem pretty, seem planned. Like, even though things ended bad, god was there the whole time. Maybe that's good enough, I don't know. At the time, it was for Carol. It was for me, too. But now? Nah. I look at you, and I think, _S_ _he's okay._ We're stronger than we were. You, me, Carol. Maggie, Glenn, Rick. All of us. And whatever happened here, we can't change it. But we can feel it, and we can use it however we need to, to keep moving forward. It's the only way. Ain't gotta be rosy. Ain't gotta tell stories. Just gotta keep going, and to do that, you gotta have hope. Not in the stories themselves, but in each other. We're livin the story. Hope's all we got, Beth. You taught me that."

He picked out the very best feather in the pile. It was real pretty and robust, from a bluejay. He gave it to her. She looked at it, smiling, twirled it in her fingers like a little ballerina. She liked it, just as he knew she would. She put her head on his shoulder, smelling real good, like rain.

That night, after pecans and dried peaches with Noah, Daryl slept for a while on the living room couch with the fire blazing. Noah kept watch out on the porch with the gun. They had strung up some hubcaps and metal pots and pans and things in a couple different spots out on the barbed wire fence, so there would be warning if anything was getting too close. But the dead had been quiet ever since their arrival. It felt like home.

Beth tried to sleep, but she couldn’t. She kept thinking about what Daryl had said, and about Daryl himself. She placed the rag doll in the crib, tidied up the kitchen, looked through an old fashion magazine at pictures of pretty girls in wedding dresses, relics from another life. Now she sat on the floor in front of the couch, hugging her backpack to her chest. She had used one of the safety pins she'd found in the bathroom to fasten the blue jay feather to the zipper, and now she was just staring at it, and staring at the fire.

Daryl woke up at some point, rubbed his eyes, placed his feet on the floor beside her. She was happy to see him, to not be alone.

“It’s quiet,” said Daryl. 

“Yeah,” said Beth. “I can see why people would wanna be at this house, in this pretty grove. Why they’d stay.”

She was picking at her cast, around the edges where it was stained with blood and dirt and other things. It looked like she’d tried to wash it off, but in doing so, had weakened the plaster.

“How’s your wrist,” he said.

“Better. How’s your ribs.”

“They hurt like hell.”

She smiled, looked down at the feather. Together, they just sat there for a while. Daryl got down on the floor beside her, put his arm around her, kissed her on the top of her head, held her tight. Seemed like they had been here before. They were closer to the truth than they realized, but still far away. The truth is a journey.

“You think Noah is sick of us yet?" she said. 

“Nah,” said Daryl. “I think he’s sweet on you. And me, well, I’m just some ugly brute, but I’ll keep us going. It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

Beth gave him a look. She was holding his hand, drawing shapes in his palm: an apple, a heart, a house. “Oh, please.” 

He wanted to be close to her. He leaned back, slouched against the couch, feeling things, watching the fire, his fingers twirling in her hair. He felt so calm, thinking about this day now, and this night, her. ”Will you sing something?” he said.

Beth thought he was joking at first, but he wasn't. He was dozing, and serious. So she sang a little bit of _Down in the River to Pray,_ an old Appalachian hymn that her daddy had used to like when the days were long and he wanted healing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song citation:
> 
> "Down in the River to Pray" by Alison Krauss ([youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSif77IVQdY) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/79x6uDDP9EAT5c35zOZhXv?si=Lfjy1gIqT_O10-9Hz1MBHA))


	6. Bullseye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanna write one for you  
> The unwritable girl  
> Who sleeps in my hand  
> In this interstate world
> 
> Who leaves me for dead  
> In my ghost town grey  
> And returns like color TV
> 
> And I've tried to run  
> My little miles  
> Stumble over my sin  
> You'll never find me out
> 
> It's been just one dream  
> We're living in  
> But you're still, and you're bright, and you're quiet  
> In the heart of it.
> 
> -Gregory Alan Isakov, "Unwritable Girl" ([youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmskctjUmV4) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3noTQVfSAGjbC2cS5efZoe?si=iz57fqKRRkOBJrVfU082Ng))

Noah was outside on the porch, counting the stars. There was an owl somewhere. He could hear it with the wind, haunting the trees. He stood up to stretch and glanced back through the window, could see the two of them, Daryl and Beth, sitting beside one another in front of the fire. Maybe they were sleeping, maybe not. He had to take a piss so he went out to the very edge of the trees. When he zipped up, he thought he saw something moving in shadow, not too far away. It spooked him, so he went back to the porch and stood there with the gun loaded, listening. But there were no more noises after that, other than the owl, and so he figured it must have just been a deer, a raccoon, maybe even a black bear. Could have been anything. He sat down again, and he lit one of the cigarettes from Beth's backpack. He knew she'd been squirreling them away for Daryl, but he figured one would be okay.

He never really smoked that much, only sometimes, with the the guys back at UVA. They would drink beer, smoke cigarettes, play D&D under the blue Christmas lights. His roommate James had said that sort of dreamy thing, like blue Christmas lights, that it would impress girls, enchant them even. Of course they rarely came around, just the rare few who liked to watch. It was the spring of his freshman year. He was back home, visiting his folks and his brothers on break when the first people started to turn. He wondered what had happened to all of those people, the dorm-mates he only half-knew back in Charlottesville, with whom he smoked the occasional cigarette. Sometimes, he wondered about Daryl and Beth, too, and what they were like before all this. Where they lived, what their favorite foods were, what they did for fun. But he never asked. It felt somehow beneath them now, and far away, almost like thinking about a dream, or about a TV show he had watched once, but he could no longer remember the title. 

Around midnight, he got up to go get Daryl for a shift-change. He had put the cigarette out and buried it in the soil by the steps. When he opened the screen door, he heard another noise, back toward the grove. Then he heard another, and another. Something ominous was picking through the leaves in the trees back there. The owl had gone quiet or flown away.

Inside, Beth was finally sleeping, curled up on the couch and facing the fire so that the flames threw little shadows on her cheeks. Daryl watched her, periodically, chewing his thumbnail, then looking back to the fire and and trying not to think too much.

The truth was, though, she was living inside him. All the time. Bubbling up like a geyser, then disappearing, then bubbling up again. On and on and on like that. It happened so much now, it felt like a curse, but that wasn't the truth. The truth was buried deep down, under a geological storm of ancient rock and molten metal. Pain. Daryl sometimes didn't know the difference between somebody who loved him, and somebody who used him. Somebody he loved, and somebody he thought he needed to survive.

When he was a kid, Merle used to take Daryl to different little stores around town, and leave him there, on the stoop, all alone, until Daryl started crying. When the shop girl came out, or shop boy, proprietor, whatever, to see what was wrong, Merle would magically reappear, saying he'd been looking for the boy all over town, thank them for their kindness, and tell some fake sob story about how their momma had died of cancer and ever since, his little brother was starting to go blind from hunger, and this made him get lost and cry. This would work every time, and they would leave with a free bag full of food, and candy, and sometimes, if they were really lucky, a ten dollar bill, which Merle would then use to buy cigarettes and a Hustler at the 7/11 by the trailer park.

Merle was thirteen years older than Daryl. Daryl had been a mistake baby, and his momma let him know every day of his life. Merle used to call him a bastard, and he'd laugh about it, saying their momma had run around with some ex-con from Texas, a real piece of shit who was now back in jail for possession of narcotics and intent to sell. 

Now Daryl was looking at this pretty girl who, no matter what her daddy's former disposition toward alcohol, had been loved and wanted every day of her life, and who had got stuck with him in the light of horrific tragedy, and in their time together, however misunderstood, she had somehow grown fond of him, and she defended him, and encouraged him, made him laugh, made him feel wanted, not just needed. She was patient, a little odd maybe, but then again so was he, and she tried to see the good in everybody, in every situation, even when sometimes it wasn't there. This made Daryl feel hopeful, alive, like a fully-formed, normal person. He'd never felt that way before. Not normal, not wanted. What he felt now toward her, that seemed complicated, and new. But maybe it wasn't. How would Daryl know? It was so raw, it almost spooked him at first, but he had decided at some point when they were back at the funeral home that he wasn’t gonna let it. That whatever they had, maybe it was unexpected, but it was also pure, and good. He had been trying to tell her this, or some version of this, that night at the undertaker's house, but he was such an idiot with words, and then the walkers came. 

That night, in front of the fire, Beth sat straight up, as if popping back through from another reality. It startled Daryl. She looked right at him, eyes big as lanterns, and then she looked at the front door and said, "Where's Noah?" 

"He's right outside," said Daryl, getting up off the floor to be with her. He tried holding her eyes with his, but she was scared. "Hey, you okay?"

She shook her head out, like she was delirious. He set his hand on her warm shoulder, and she leaned forward with her head hanging between her knees, like she was afraid she might faint or something. "Sorry," she said. "I just, I had a dream. I was alone."

"What happened?"

"I just, I was alone," she said, pushing all the hair out of her face and behind her ears. Her face was cleaner now. You could see the pink in her cheeks. "I was standing on a big island. There were trees all behind me, and in front, it was just the beach, and it had weird things crawling all over it, in the sand. I don't know what they were. Just like, weird, dark creatures. Like, they were skittering. It was night, and I could see the moon, but part of it was missin, like it had been blown out, by a machine. I couldn't find you. You were in the water somewhere. I kept trying to swim to find you but I couldn't get past the waves. Noah was in the woods, with Glenn. I don't know why Glenn was supposed to be there. I can't remember."

"Shit," said Daryl. "That's actually pretty fucked up."

"You're tellin me."

"But I'm here. Noah's here, too. You ain't alone."

She smiled quietly, down at her hands. "What time is it?"

There was no clock in the house. Daryl didn't have a watch. By feel and by position of the moon, he guessed it was about midnight. "Shift change soon," he said. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Beth. "Like I said, just a dream."

They both heard the front door then, swinging open and slamming shut like somebody on a mission from god. Noah was inside now, flipped the kitchen table and started pushing it against the door, looking scared as hell, all before Daryl even had the chance to ask him what the hell was going on.

"Walkers," said Noah, going for the bookcase next. Daryl was right there with him. "I don't know how many. Ten, maybe twenty? Coming out the trees."

"What the hell's drawing walkers?" said Daryl.

"I don't know," said Noah. "I thought I heard something, but when I checked, it was nothing there. Walkers showed up about ten minutes later."

Once they secured the front door, they could hear the things clawing against it, and tapping on the windows. Beth had snapped to right away, drew the curtains, killed the fire with a bucket of water from the sink, blew out the candles on the table. She was now prying the doors off the kitchen cabinets with a hammer from one of the bedrooms. She used them to cover up the little windows over the kitchen sink. 

Daryl and Noah backed into the living room, standing perfectly still. "We're gonna have to make a run for it," said Noah. "Maybe make it back to the car. They break through them windows, we're toast."

Daryl had his crossbow over his shoulder, looked at Noah, then looked at Beth, having flashbacks to that night at the undertaker's house. They'd made a run for it then. It didn't work.

“You got one more firecracker,” said Beth. "In your pocket. We could use it to draw them away."

“Nah,” said Daryl. “That’ll be too loud. It'll just draw more. And it don't do nothin, just makes sound.”

Beth went into her backpack then, trying to do whatever she could to help. She took out the bottle of Maker's she'd swiped from that Target in Atlanta. "Well, what about this?" she said.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Back in Atlanta. Maybe we could, I don't know, make a real distraction? Use fire. Burn um?" She gave him the bottle.

He held it there, in his hands. A liter of Maker's. Top shelf Kentucky bourbon whiskey. It was a good idea. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Good thinkin, Beth."

"What do we do?" said Noah.

"You stay here," said Daryl, tossing him the crossbow. "Keep that thing pointed at the front window. Beth, you got your knife?"

She plucked it out of its sheath, ready for anything. "What are you doin, Daryl?"

"Imma go create this distraction."

"By yourself?"

"I'll be right back," he said. "Don't worry."

He grabbed a mason jar, picked up a dish rag off the kitchen counter. Then he slid out the backdoor and went past the little graveyard. The walkers were concentrated round the front of the house, so he went right past them, into the grove. From here, he could count them in the moonlight. There were maybe a dozen. He knew they could take them in a pinch, but he didn't want to risk it. Things had been going to good for them. He wasn't playing the odds. He poured half the bottle into the jar, dipped in the rag, lit the rag with his zippo. It wasn't perfect, but it would due. He tossed the makeshift molotov about ten yards out. When it hit, the fire exploded like liquid. He waited while it caught in the nettles of the grove and started to spread. Slowly then, the walkers turned to look at the light. One by one, they stumbled back toward the flame, just a bunch of fucking robots, exactly as he had intended. They caught fire, one after the other, fell down into the darkness, burning till they could no longer walk or see. A few stayed behind, still tapping on the front door. Daryl lured them straight to him, took them out one by one with his hunting knife, and left their corpses rotting in the dark. He wiped the sweat from his brow, took a deep breath and made sure there were no more coming through the trees. When he was sure, he jogged back to the house, slipped inside.

He was wiping the knife off, and his hands, on the front of his vest. "Are they all dead?" said Beth.

"More or less," said Daryl. "The fire ain't too big, but it could draw anymore hangin around the area. We should be safe till morning though. I'll stay up, just in case. Keep watch."

"I ain't sleepin," said Noah. "That was way too badass."

"I agree," said Beth, sheathing her knife. "Pretty badass."

Daryl looked down at the remainder of the whiskey, then he looked at both of them. He uncorked the bottle, sat down on the living room floor, took a swig, and handed it to Beth. "Fuck it," he said. 

Two hours later, the fire was starting dwindle outside, and Beth had fallen asleep, tipsy, on the floor leaning against the couch. Daryl scooped her up, set her on the cushions, arranged the yellow hair out of her face. Then he went and sat down next to Noah on a kitchen chair. They had left the kitchen table propped up against the front door, were both just staring at it now, passing what was left of the Maker's.

Daryl was tired, but he'd had worse. He rubbed his eyes and started playing with the flame on the lighter, running his fingertips through it like Merle had used to do. His crossbow was on the floor, leaning between his knees.

"So," said Noah, swigging the whiskey, passing him the bottle. 

"So what." He pocketed the lighter.

"So, you and Beth," he said. "Something goin on there?"

Daryl gave him a look, like he was surprised. He took a drink, then shoved the bottle back into Noah's lap. "What is this, a fuckin sleepover?"

"Sort of," said Noah. He smiled, swirled the whiskey around in the bottle. "You don't have to answer."

Daryl was rubbing his thumbs over the fletching on his bolts. "Why you askin."

"I mean, I been traveling with you guys for a couple days now, known you a couple days longer than that. We escaped otherwise certain death together, a bunch of times. I'm just curious."

"Did she say somethin?"

"No."

Daryl grunted, said nothing, looking down at the bow.

When Noah offered him more of the whiskey, he declined. "Save what's left."

Noah corked the bottle and set it down on the rug. "I don't know, man," he said, looking at the table, flipped on its side, all that shit stacked up against the door. "Nights like this, fuckin walkers popping up out of nowhere, it happens left and right these days. I just wouldn't wait if I was you."

"Wait for what."

"To make your move," said Noah.

“Make my move?”

"How old are you anyway?"

"Come again?"

"I was just wondering."

Daryl thought on it. "What month is it?"

"Uh, September? I think."

“I guess,” he said, "I guess I'm twenty-nine."

"Interesting," said Noah.

"What is."

"Nothing," he said. "You had to wonder what month it was. Just makes me think we might've missed your birthday."

"You didn't miss nothin, don't worry," said Daryl. He reached into his pocket, took out those feathers he'd found the day before.

He sat, fletching an arrow by the light of a single candle on a low, wooden stool. Noah had his chin in his hands, wobbly from the booze. It probably wasn't a good idea to get drunk, but now it was too late. He was hoping for the best.

"You know, when I first met Beth," said Daryl, sealing the feathers to the shaft, using a bit of glue from his vest pocket, "She was just a kid. But she’s always had this...sharpness inside her. I don't mean like, she's mean or somethin. Nah. I just mean, she sees what she sees, and she does what she does, and she don’t care what anybody else thinks. She calls things like she sees them, holds her ground, even if it ain't the normal, prescribed course of action, and that can really freak people out."

"Like who?"

"Like her sister," said Daryl. "Maggie. Maggie's a real brave girl, but she ain't Beth. They're different. Brave in different ways. Like, Maggie's a real badass, you know? Older, more assertive, better shot, better fighter in a brawl. All that. But Beth, she's kind of, I don't know. Like, she’s fightin a different fight. She knows how to look at things in ways you ain’t never thought of, how to think about things. Like the little things. How to hit you where it hurts, or find the hinges on any situation, and then she blows the thing wide open. She sees the details, the little brush strokes in the background and how they change the whole picture.”

"Did it ever freak you out?"

"Nah," said Daryl. "I mean, to be honest, I never really knew her that well, till recently. Back then, she was just some little girl to me. She had some boyfriend. Then another boyfriend. Her dad was, well. Nevermind. She's a lot like he was, it turns out."

"Seems like she ain't just some little girl no more," said Noah. 

Daryl went back to his fletching. He'd fished a toothpick out of his pocket, set it between his teeth. "I know."

"She looted you some cigarettes," said Noah. "Back at the Target. Talk about noticing the finer details."

"She did?"

"You love her, right?" said Noah, leaning with his elbows on his knees, watching the delicate glue work, the skill with which Daryl could craft an arrow out of nothing.

Daryl kept busy, kept his eyes on his work, that candle burning. He didn't deny it.

It was just one long, unbroken silence after that, till the light outside turned purple, then pink, then gold with the sunrise. They both nodded off before the coming day. When they finally awoke, it was to the smell of roasting pecans, and they were leaning against each other. They straightened up immediately as if embarrassed. Beth was in the kitchen, boiling water for instant coffee.

"Where the hell'd you get coffee?" said Daryl, yawning. She was handing him a steaming mug while he took a seat at the kitchen table. Noah had taken it down off the door and flipped it back on its legs so they could sit and eat breakfast as civilized human beings. 

"At Target," she said.

"Damn, girl. Did you find everything at Target?" The coffee was piss poor and weak, but it was also the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. 

"No," she said, pouring some for Noah. "Only the very best things, for us."

Noah started laughing. Daryl just sat with the steam coming out the mug, warming his chin, his nose. She was better at foraging than anyone. She'd made that Target her bitch, and yet she just kept it to herself. Whiskey? Cigarettes? Coffee? At the end of the world. He hadn't had coffee since the bitter end. 


	7. Wolves

The fire in the woods had fizzled out by late morning, when the walkers were crispy, quiet, and flattened to the earth. Daryl finished his coffee and went out by himself to scout a way forward. While he was gone, Beth roasted up a whole shitload of pecans for the road, and Noah drew a map so that, if they needed to, they could find their way back to this place. It was defensible and secluded, and also pretty. He poured the remaining whiskey into a mason jar and screwed the lid on tight. When Daryl got back, he reported two sets of human footprints headed off the property, directly to the train tracks, about a half-mile in the opposite direction of where they'd ditched the car. 

"They're three, maybe four days old," he said, chewing on a pecan.

Beth threw on her purple backpack, and Noah had the gun. Together, they set out on their way to the train tracks and said goodbye to the little graves and the lonely grove and all that had or had not taken place there. 

The tracks were old. They looked unused, as if retired well before the end of the world, and overgrown with vines and there was a lot of dark foliage, hunching over almost like a tunnel. It felt haunted and magical, and like they were entering through a wormhole to some other dimension. They walked right down the middle. It was not too hot, out in the county. Without so much asphalt to absorb the heat, the sun just played upon their skin, in little morsels through the trees. Nobody missed Atlanta.

Beth and Daryl spoke casually as they walked. Noah was glad to have found them. They were loyal to one another, whether or not they were in love being sort of a non-issue when it came to getting shit done. They also seemed real loyal to this guy Rick who they both talked about constantly. What would Rick do? Rick would do this. Rick would do that. And they had taken Noah in without question. Truth be told, he had liked Beth a little at first, at the hospital. She was pretty and bright and she could sing, and what’s not to like? But meeting Daryl, that made a lot of sense. Daryl lived hard, but deep down, Noah could tell he was kind of a softie. He was good with Beth and with that female sensibility, like he knew just want to say, and how to say it to make her smile. To Noah, he felt a little like a big brother. Always looking both ways before they all crossed the street.

“Hey,” said Beth. “Hey, look at that.” She had been out front, was toeing along the rails like a couple of balance beams. She was pointing to a sign right next to the tracks. The sign said, _TERMINUS: SANCTUARY FOR ALL. THOSE WHO ARRIVE SURVIVE_.

Daryl was chewing on a piece of bark. When he saw the sign, he spat and went right to it. He had his crossbow over his shoulder and seemed wary. “Terminus,” he said. “What the hell is that.”

“Maybe like a community or something?” said Beth. She was trying to seem positive. “A sanctuary. Look. There's a map. We just follow the tracks."

Daryl wasn't convinced. "Seems shady as hell."

“Why?” said Beth.

“Because,” said Daryl. “Just the word. _Terminus._ Sounds like some place you go to, I don’t know, get terminated.”

Noah found this amusing. “You ain't wrong,” he said.

“Well, maybe you’re both wrong,” said Beth.

“I hope so,” said Daryl. "Because according to this trail we're on, we don’t got much choice.”

“Rick would follow the signs,” said Beth. "He would go somewhere we could all find each other."

“You’re right,” said Daryl. He was chewing on something else now. A pen cap, squinting into the sun where it poked its nose through the trees. “Let's keep going."

They walked.

“So,” said Noah after a while. “Your dad was a farmer?"

"Yes," said Beth.

"You know how to like, milk cows and stuff?"

She laughed. "Yeah, I do."

"That's hilarious."

"You ever milked a cow, Noah?" said Daryl. "It's harder than it looks."

"When have you milked cows?" said Beth.

"At the goddam prison," said Daryl. "It was your dad who showed me how. And your sister. Me and Glenn, we basically took a master class."

"Who's Glenn?" said Noah.

"My sister's husband," said Beth. She had hopped off the rails, picked up a big stick off the side of the road. "Glenn and Maggie. Glenn Rhee."

Daryl watched. She was uneasy, talking about Glenn and Maggie. He could tell. She started using that stick as a makeshift walking stick, stabbing it into the ground like she was getting out some of her inner-frustrations, or like she was stabbing garbage on community service. He remembered watching Merle do such unsavory bullshit, then buying drugs from a skinhead under an overpass on I-85.

"Chin up," said Daryl, nudging her. 

"Yeah, yeah," she said, smiling. Just like Noah thought. She smiled easy for Daryl.

They walked.

“Hey, stop,” said Daryl.

The day was warming up again. The cicadas were going off, and a woodpecker, way up high. It was late afternoon and the trees were peeling back, revealing the sun in all of its late summer glory. 

"Daryl, what the hell is that?" said Beth.

They were staring up at a couple of dead bodies some ways up the tracks, as well as a couple walkers eating them up like demons. 

"Ah, shit," said Noah. 

Daryl moved up quickly without warning. He put a bolt in one of them, snuck up on the other, hulled it with his knife. He removed the bolt, kicked the dead aside. No more were coming. So he started hauling away the human corpses, dragging them by the armpits, and laying them down side-by-side in the grass next to the tracks. He then started examining their faces, or what was left of them. It was nobody they knew. Daryl checked their pockets, found nothing but a high-end switch blade with a pearlescent handle, which he tossed to Beth.

"What's this?" she said.

"Bonus present."

"We should at least thank them," she said. "Or, I will." She closed her eyes for just a second, as if embarrassed, then put the knife in her back pocket. Daryl looked away, so as not to cause her to be self-conscious. But he liked her little ritual of thanking the dead.

“Jesus Christ,” said Noah. “You see that? What the hell happened to this guy’s leg?”

He was hunched over the third man. The bodies were all pretty mutilated, looked like they’d been shot in the head, execution style. One of them, though, his entire leg had been sawed off, above the knee. 

“Maybe he got bit,” said Beth.

“Maybe," said Daryl. "I don't know though. Looks like he bled out fast. No attempt to tourniquet."

“Why would somebody do that?” said Noah.

They all quickly lost trust in their surroundings. Somewhere nearby, there was a Mourning Dove, singing its sad song, joining in with the woodpecker. Then the crows started. The woods were alive. “No idea,” said Daryl. He dusted off his jeans, hauled that crossbow up over his shoulder. “Come on."

They walked.

Beth opened the knife, then closed it, admiring its handle. She opened it and closed it again. Then she noticed that it had an engraving on the blade, in fancy script, something she hadn’t seen earlier.

It said, _Love is all you need._

Beth stopped in her tracks. It was the Beatles again, which annoyed her. And she found the sentiment to be sad and depressing and like a tragedy. If love was all these people needed, then maybe they shouldn't have ended up dead. She knew though that she was missing the point on purpose, so she put it away into the back pocket of her blue jeans, then she smudged the hair off her face and tried catching up with Daryl, because he always walked too fast. Noah stayed back, pulling up the rear. 

“Hey,” she said, taking a hair out her mouth.

“Yeah?”

She realized then that she had no idea what she wanted to say to him. “Wait up."

He looked down, trusting, like she’d just pulled him out of some sort of trance. “Okay.”

He slowed down, so she could walk by his side. She linked her arm in his. He was big and warm, even in the waning day as the sun went down. He smelled like the burning woods. He was chewing on that pen cap. Then, she remembered something. “Hey," she said. "I found some cigarettes, back in Atlanta. I took um for you.”

Daryl did smile at this, knowing. “You did, huh?"

She shrugged. “We’re all gonna die anyway. I ain’t judgin.”

“Maybe later,” said Daryl. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” As they walked, she leaned against him just a little.

Then, together, they saw another one of those signs for Terminus, up ahead, in the near distance. This one looked different, however.

“Hey, Daryl, Beth,” said Noah, out of nowhere. He had stopped a little ways back, was leaning with his face close to a cottonwood tree. He was also holding over his shoulder a mighty fireman's axe. 

“Where the hell’d you get the axe?” said Daryl.

Noah looked at it, admiring. “Sticking out a log, just back here. And hey, look at this, there's like, a marking on the tree."

"What kind of marking?"

"I don't know," said Noah. "Looks intentional. Like, a deep, straight line. Also pretty fresh."

"There's another one over here," said Beth. She was out ahead now, with her finger pressed to a second tree trunk.

"Beth, wait," said Daryl.

"You think maybe it's a trail?" she said. "Somebody's leaving one on purpose, so they can find their way home?"

“You think we ain’t alone out here?” said Noah.

“I don’t know," said Daryl. "Let's keep moving."

“Guys,” Beth said. Her voice had gotten even more distant now. She was way out ahead, out of reach. She must have picked up and started running. "Guys, up here!"

“Beth,” said Daryl, starting toward her. “Jesus Christ. Hold up."

“Look,” she said, shouting. She was pointing up to that sign, for Terminus, the one they had seen before. It had used to be just like the last one, they could tell, but the writing had been crossed out, and there was new writing now in what looked like blood. The new sign read: _NO SANCTUARY._

“No Sanctuary?"” said Noah. “Holy shit."

"Do you smell that?" said Beth. "Smells like smoke."

“Beth,” said Daryl.

What happened next, happened in slow motion. All the talking, or maybe it was Noah grabbing that axe, or Beth shouting, didn't matter, because it was bringing walkers out of the trees, three of them, then four, then five. They saw Beth first, started stumbling toward. She drew her knife, sizing them up, shifting, finding her stance. Her eyes were big as silver dollars as she backed away from them and up the tracks. Panicked, Daryl started shouting. Started banging on the tracks with his knife. A couple of them got distracted, digressed. Daryl shot their eyes out.

Noah was already out ahead with the axe, helping Beth with the remainder. But more were coming, a pair. She ducked one, a scraggly old woman with white hair. She shoved it against the Terminus sign, which wobbled under its weight, and then she got the thing with her knife, first in the neck, then in the skull. But there was that final one, and Noah’s axe had got stuck. He'd swung too hard, and it was lodged in the space between the tracks and the rail. Out of bolts, Daryl was nearly there, but Beth tripped. She went down in the middle of the tracks, losing her knife. She scrambled backward. The one coming now was a big guy, real slow, but heavy. Noah got the axe free, swiped its legs out from under. The thing fell forward, grasping at Beth's ankles, but she had that new knife, the one with the pearlescent handle. Love is all you need. _All you need is love!_ She switched it out of her pocket, drove it straight into the soft of the big guy’s skull. It died instantly, collapsed into pile of putrescent limbs and guts in the dirt. Beth scrambled up fast, staring at the carnage like she was horrified. Then she saw Daryl, his knife in hand, the crossbow in the dirt some ways behind. He was breathing so heavy, you could see his chest rising and falling underneath his shirt. Beth was holding that knife with a death grip now, her whole hand stained in blood. 

The world grew quiet, as if their fight had provoked a deep solemnity from within. The sky was purple. Night was falling, quick. Noah picked up Beth’s hunting knife and handed it to her. “Good work."

"Thanks." She wiped the sweat and the hair off her face, then she wiped the knife off on her jeans. She felt overwhelmed, but sort of proud. 

Meanwhile, Daryl had not moved. His face was all dark, like he was standing in shadow. She thought he might be angry at her or something, for running out ahead. She probably shouldn’t have, but still. In any case, he did not get upset with her. He shook his head out a little, like a dog, looking down at his hands, then his shoes. His voice got small, like he was afraid. He said, “You okay?”

She sheathed the knife. She said, “I'm fine. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run out ahead like that.”

Daryl was solid, like a stone, but now, he was sinking. He looked back up at that Terminus sign. He smelled the smoke. It was a bad omen. “Sun's going down. We should camp,” he said.

“It ain’t that old,” said Beth, pointing to the sign. “The blood here. Whoever put this, they ain’t that far. It could be them.”

“We’ll start fresh when it’s light,” said Daryl, newly numb, no clarity. He was proud of her, fending for herself, but he didn't like it. It was messing him up. He picked up his crossbow, stepping on walkers to dislodge his bolts from their skulls. Then he threw it heavily over his shoulder. He took Beth’s hand. This surprised her, as it reminded her of the beginning, when it was just him and her, running for their lives like hell through the woods. “Time to go,” he said.

A long time ago, at the prison, Beth had had such a crush on Daryl, the day he left with Merle after everything that happened with Glenn and Maggie in Woodbury, she was so pissed off she wrote a dumb song about it in her journal and then ripped the page out in a fit of annoyance and lit it on fire. The song was something stupid like: _When the dawn fades, that's when it's time for the takeover. Anyway, far away, I'll always find you. Anyway._ When he came back, and it was the whole thing with the walkers and the Governor, he was all heroic and banged up as usual. She felt bad for being mad at him, even though nobody knew except maybe Carol. She didn't talk to him at all. Nobody did really. He was quiet and weird, but that night, she brought him something to eat on a tin plate while he was fletching an arrow, wearing a t-shirt, and he said, "Thanks, Beth." 

They ducked into the woods, hoping for shelter. The day was dying. The only thing left to do was wait it out, try and figure out what the hell was going on with Terminus, if there even was such a thing as Terminus, and the source of the smoke, in the morning. They found an elementary school, two stories, red brick. The blacktop was overrun, but there was a playground on the other side, fenced in and clean with a jungle gym and a crow’s nest, a swing set, and some little houses made of tires. Daryl used the last of the whiskey to start a dumpster fire. He lit it up, drew the walkers, and then they all started shuffling to see. Like little kids, lining up for the Fourth of July. Some of them tipped over inside, caught fire, started tracking it into the others. Daryl looked away, and they went back to the playground. Didn't matter what it looked like. It made them safe.

They built a small fire for warmth inside one of the tire houses. They didn’t have a lot of food, some Cliff bars from the Target, dried peaches, and some of the pecans from the grove. They rationed and ate in silence. Daryl walked around the perimeter of the jungle gym, found some clover, sucked the sugar out the little pink flowers, pocketed some more. Then he went up to the crow’s nest with his crossbow to keep watch. Beth stayed with Noah for a little while, the two of them sharing stories by the fire, becoming genial and warm, talking about their lives before. They were becoming friends. At some point, Noah had popped the head off a dandelion and said he was feeling pretty tired.

Beth got quiet. She looked at the fire, then started picking at her cast. She glanced up at Daryl, all alone up there in the crow's nest, keeping watch, like he always did. It didn't matter, whatever came, whatever got in their way, whatever bullshit he had to do, he never complained. “I think I'm gonna go check on Daryl,” she said, getting up, dusting her jeans off. “Just check up on him."

Noah smiled, tossed the dandelion into the fire, then plucked up another. A bunch were growing up from the grass under the tires. "Good thinking."

"You gonna be okay?"

“I'll be fine," said Noah. "You go on up there. Give him this for me." He handed Beth the dandelion. 

She twirled it in her fingers, brought it to her nose. "These things always smelled like feet to me."

"Yeah, me, too," said Noah. 

All around, the cicadas had traded in for crickets. The night was calm. It reminded her of the farm. 

Up in the crow’s nest, Daryl was smoking one of the cigarettes from the pack of Camel Turkish Golds Beth had scavenged back in Atlanta. It soothed him for a little while, but he hated it all the same. When it was burned down to the filter, he put it out on the wooden platform and then flicked it to the weeds below. He spat and sucked on some more of the clover and then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, watching, always watching.

He could see the walkers from here, one after the other, stumbling around, on fire, some of them falling down in pieces but still alive. It reminded him of the grove, but in some ways, this was even more fucked up. It was a school. _No more recess_ , he thought. No Christmas recitals, no teacher's pets. No detention. He wondered how the hell it had got to be like this. What the hell had happened. He wished he could talk to God, ask him, but then again that was hubris. He didn't even know if he believed no more. He thought instead of that doctor back at the CDC. That poor, stupid piece of shit, and how his wife had died, and so he blew himself up along with an entire city block. That is what happens, thought Daryl. That is what happens to a man when he is alone for too long.

“Hey,” said Beth.

She was there, all of a sudden, a breath of fresh air, coming up the ladder.

“Hey,” he said.

She came and sat down next to him. She gave him a dandelion. "That's from Noah."

"Lucky me," he said. He stuck it behind his ear. 

She rubbed her hands together, like she was a little cold, her long legs dangling off the edge of the platform. “Everything okay?” she said.

“Not really,” said Daryl. He was glad to see her, but she also made it easy to be truthful. He looked back out at the dumpster fire on the blacktop. 

“I went to a school like this,” said Beth.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We had a jungle gym, and a crow’s nest, just like this. And I remember, there was this mean old lunch lady.”

“What was her name.”

“Mrs. Beidel.”

“Hmm,” said Daryl. “Wonder what Mrs. Beidel is up to now.”

“I’m sure she’s alive,” said Beth. “That lady would survive a nuclear winter. You know some people, they’re like cockroaches.”

Daryl smiled at this. It was relatable. He looked down at the dry tips of his fingers. He was picking through the cigarettes. Then he closed up the pack, stuck it in his pocket with the lighter. “Does this make you sad then?”

“Does what make me sad?”

“This place. This school. Overrun, burning down.”

She smiled, shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not no more.” She picked up his hand, held it firmly, her fingers laced in with his. Her hair was all pushed back, revealing her face, which was dirty, blood smudged on her neck. She had always sort of been there, in the background, pretty and minding her business, taking care of Judith, rarely making a fuss. But she was so familiar to him now. Looking at that little world out there as it burned, she seemed to see something else. “The old world is dead, Daryl Dixon.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know.”

“You don’t get it.” They were looking at each other now. Most of the ugliness down there was getting to him, making him numb again. But she knew this, because she knew him. He hardly allowed anybody to really know him. 

Then she smoothed the hair out of his eyes, just like she’d done back at the hospital. He didn't flinch this time. He had grown braver over the past week, and more sure of himself, and he wanted to keep her there. "I don't?"

She was very sure of herself, in her strange, dreamy way. It fixed him right where he was. "A long time ago, back on the farm, when I was straight-up suicidal, Andrea said somethin to me that stuck. I been tryin to think about it, a little, whenever I start losin hope, feelin down. Like today, when I was thinkin about Glenn. Andrea said, _The pain doesn't go away. You just make room for it._ She was sort of right, but what she was missin was this." She looked down at their hands, and he did, too. "Our hearts grow," she continued. "The more we see and do, and the older we get, I guess. Every day. That room we made before, for all them things we lost, it's nothin now. There's miles ahead, Daryl. We're the wolves."

She took the dandelion from behind his ear and tossed it to the ground below, where it landed in a pile of mulch, the dull yellow standing out against the wood. Like it was the old world, and they were the new.

"Wolves, huh?" said Daryl.

"Yeah," said Beth, defiantly.

He tucked the hair behind her ear, because he didn't know what else to say. She was beautiful and right, and Daryl was not a man of many words. He went about in silence, let his actions speak. He did not like to leave impressions unless the circumstances demanded it so. But the time was right, and she was waiting on him, so he heeded Noah and made his move.

He leaned in, closed his eyes, and kissed her. 


	8. Prelude

_The School_

Daryl was made of old codes and hieroglyphics, like a tomb. Beth was an archaeologist.

When her daddy was getting off the drink for good, she was a girl. Her momma was a part-time nurse at the hospital in Senoia, and she worked nights two to three times a week. Hershel had used to sit and smoke cigarettes on the back porch sometimes while she would be at work, staring at the fields and then when he became enervated would come inside and want a game of UNO or Spades. Maggie would play for a little while, but she was overwhelmingly studious back then, so she would have to get to bed early. Then it would just be Beth and Shawn, and then when Shawn would fall asleep, it was just Beth.

Beth liked nights. She liked when the sun was down, and it was dark, and everybody else was asleep. The world felt full of possibilities. She would stay up and listen to her daddy tell all of these stories about his life, about his friends from the old days, when Senoia was nothing but a one-stoplight cowtown and they used to run the saloon from midnight till dawn. He would tell stories about his parents, the farm back then when he was young. He’d had a contentious relationship with his own father, which predictably rested upon the premise of alcohol. He had struggled a lot to free himself from that old family curse, and in many ways, understanding this about him felt like the thing that most drew her to Daryl. 

When he kissed her, she could smell the smoke, in his jacket and on his hands. He was big and warm and good, and she became lost. It was a surprise. Daryl was so tightly held within himself, like a fist, and she didn’t know what she did to him. She didn’t know how she made him feel, and what this would mean for them in the years to come.

Maybe she should have known. Maybe she should have seen it coming, but Beth’s habits for self-preservation ran almost as deep as his did. She closed her eyes to the pain. She was just pluckier, and perhaps fierce, and she wore the bright side on her sleeve, because that’s what she’d used to do, before all this bullshit, when there had been Sadie Hawkins dances and imaginary Boone's Farm, and Spades with her dad after midnight.

But Daryl had been right about one thing at the shine shack, which was that whatever he was going through, she was, too. _You lost two boyfriends,_ he’d said to her. _You lost two boyfriends and you can’t even shed a tear._ It hurt her because it was true, and the fact that he remembered made her realize how much he saw and held onto all those days and months, that she meant something to him, even before, even when it wasn’t the two of them together, alone, in the crow’s nest.

“Beth,” said Daryl.

When they parted, she must have been staring at him with blank abandon. He said her name, and she shook her head out like a dog. “Yeah?”

He was studying her, seemed kind of worried, like he was trying to make sure that what he’d done was okay. “Did you—I mean. Did I—”

But she kissed him back instead, without thinking. His big hands went to her waist, hesitant, like he had forgotten how to use them. The sky got huge all around. Like they were in space, floating through the planets. He was just trying to keep his shit together. When they opened their eyes Daryl wanted to say so much, but he was just looking at the skin on her neck and the blood and dirt. She filled his heart. He wanted to tell her this, but the words were missing, and as the high wore off, he was suddenly terrified that it would all just slip away.

“Wait,” she said, out of nowhere. Like something was wrong. She was looking past him, fixed on something in the distance.

“What’s the matter?” said Daryl.

“Nothing. Or, I ain’t sure. Daryl, look.”

He turned his head around, followed her gaze over his shoulder. With her warm hand still grazing the skin on his cheek, they were staring out past the red brick of the elementary school. It was like a meteor, crashing in. The whole moment fell off a cliff, and into the sea, and together, they saw a little parade of men moving in an organized fashion, like dark shadows emerging from the trees. 

“Who the hell is that,” said Daryl.

“I don’t know,” said Beth. “But we gotta go. We gotta tell Noah.”

Now, they had moved up past the tire house. They were pressed up against the school sign, spying on the strangers. Noah had the axe. Beth had the gun. Daryl had the bow. The men they’d seen coming out the woods, they had Bob. They were dragging Bob on a slab of wood, gagged, with his hands and his feet tied up, and he was unconscious. There was blood on his face. There was a camp up ahead. Beth, Daryl, and Noah hadn’t seen it before, but it was really close to the school, on the other side of the asphalt, with a fine view of the dumpster fire. The men were arguing. The fire had spread walkers all over the place, bumping into each other, causing problems.

“Somebody did this,” said one of the men. They could barely hear him. He was tall. He looked like a weasel, thought Beth, and not just metaphorically. He had his knife out, was in gore up to his elbows. They’d had to take out a bunch of the dead just to secure their perimeter.

“What if we was followed from the church,” said the other. He cocked his gun, but he was afraid. “They could be anywhere.”

“Shut up,” said the weasel. “The fire was already burning when we got here.”

“Could be those people we saw, on the tracks. Told you we shoulda—”

“Shut. Up.”

Beth had a plan.

“If I scream,” she said to Daryl. “They’ll come runnin, and we can ambush’um. There’s only six guys. Or, five guys, one girl. I can take her, easy.”

“No way,” said Daryl. “You ain’t bait. And besides, they all got guns.”

“Big guns,” said Noah.

“They’ll be caught off guard,” said Beth. “I could go in and maybe pretend—”

“No,” said Daryl. “No. That ain’t how we do things.”

“Then how do we do things?” said Beth. “How, Daryl?”

“What would Rick do?” said Noah.

They both looked at him like he was speaking some other language.

“What?” he went on. “It’s what you guys are always sayin. I don’t know the guy, but he seems to be pretty, I don’t know, smart.”

Daryl got down on one knee, to think. He was scrambled, his whole body in whiplash per the events of the night.

“I ain’t scared,” said Beth. “Daryl, I swear.”

“Beth,” said Daryl. It was abrupt. He wasn’t angry, but it was the end of that conversation. He hung his head, held up his hand. “I know. Just, just gimme a minute.”

The strangers continued to argue. Bob was starting to flinch, slowly, on the ground. The girl didn’t like this. She was uncomfortable, so she shouted for them all to be quiet. But this drew more walkers. The weasel hulled one, then two with his machete.

One of the others got spooked, popped one off with his shotgun. The sound was loud, went ringing through the night. Everything stopped.

“We gotta go,” said Noah. “That’s gonna draw walkers from every direction inside a mile.”

“We could use the walkers, right?” said Beth. “Like a distraction.”

“Yeah,” said Daryl. “Yeah, they’re comin.” He got up then, real determined. “I’m goin in.”

“By yourself?” said Beth.

“I’m goin in,” he said. “You guys stay here. I’m gonna amp up the chaos. When I give the signal, then that’s how you know it’s all good.”

“What’s the signal?” said Beth.

Daryl looked at her, like he was only half-there. Like part of him was gone already. He said, “You’ll know it when you see it.”

He was off then, slipping into the night.

“I guess he does this sort of thing a lot,” said Noah. “Am I right?”

“What sort of thing?”

“Goin off alone.”

Beth sighed, remembering all those times he had done just that. “You got no idea.”

Meanwhile, Daryl was on the move. What would Rick do? Rick. Rick was insane, thought Daryl. Rick would go in, on some kamikaze mission, talk a bunch of highfalutin shit, then headbutt the weasel motherfucker and hit the floor while they all shot at each other in the ensuing madness. It would have worked.

But Daryl was not Rick. He didn’t have a titanium disposition to veil his feral nature, and he was loyal and brave, but he wasn’t a general. What he did have was his wits about him every second of the damn day, and what he could do was sneak. Be invisible. It was his superpower, cultivated all his life, an _unseen,_ and it was all leading him straight into this moment. Daryl was never afraid to die. For all intents and purposes, and in many ways, he was already dead. Or, at least that was what he had told himself, every day, with every mission like this, for a long time.

So he got close, pressed up against the building. Around the corner, everybody in the group was freaking out at the guy who had let off his shotgun. It was bad news. One of them, some young dude with his hood up, he was a raging psychopath and started beating the guy to death with his fists and then the butt of his shotgun. The girl was screaming. The weasel was telling everyone to shut the fuck up then attacked the psycho, tossed his ass into the dirt, stuck his blade into the guy’s chest. He died, sputtering, in the grass. The girl was still screaming. She was starting to back away now. While this was all going on, more walkers were starting to come out of the trees.

Whoever these people were, Daryl could tell they weren’t used to being on the open range. They kept losing sight of their periphery, were all full of blind spots. The girl got bit, went down. Daryl looked away. It always made him feel nauseous, and fucked up inside. Especially when it was girls. He swallowed a whole lot of dry air. When he looked back to the scene, finally, he saw that Bob was coming to. He was lulling around on that slab, confused, concussed, and the first thing he saw was Daryl. Daryl held one finger to his lips, shook his head. Bob continued to lie there. Three of the strangers were dead now. It was just the weasel and two others, and they were full on distracted by madness, and by fear as the walkers descended. It was at this moment that Daryl reached into his pocket. He took out that last firecracker, leftover from the Target, just a dumbass cherry bomb, but it would do. He lit it with the lighter and then tossed it toward the weasel. Once it started to pop, they all freaked out in disorderly fashion, and that was the end for them. The walkers were moving. Bob lie still. He looked dead as they were. When Daryl got a clear path, he went in and ungagged him, untied his legs, then his hands while the weasel and his friends went down.

“Holy shit,” said Bob, amidst the entropy of the scene. Daryl hauled his ass off the slab and together they started hobbling back toward the playgroud. “Daryl. Daryl, you’re alive? Holy goddamn shit. You’re here. You’re fuckin here. Where the fuck did you come from?”

“The shadows, brother,” said Daryl. “Where else?”

This made Bob laugh.

When they got back to the elementary school sign, Beth and Noah were ready.

She said, “We gotta go now. More walkers are comin.”

So they ducked into the night, all four. Bob was going on fumes but it was enough to sustain him. He said, “The group, everybody is holed up at a church.”

“The group?” said Beth, wiping the hair and the sweat off her face. They were standing in the trees, looking at each other, looking at Bob. “You mean like who? Who is alive?”

“Rick,” said Bob. “And Carl. The baby. Carol, Michonne. Tyreese and Sasha. Glenn and Maggie. Some other people have joined up, too. I can’t remember all their names. Some priest.”

“Maggie? Maggie’s alive?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bob, smiling. “She is.”

“Take us to um,” said Daryl. “Do you remember how to get there?”

“Hell yes,” said Bob. He was out of breath now. He had a weariness about him. It went deeper than they realized.

_The Church_

When they got there, some kind of scuffle had broken out. They could hear the yelling from inside. Daryl told Bob, Noah, and Beth to stay out on the steps with their weapons and he kicked in the door and went in by himself. He saw some stuff he didn’t understand, mainly everybody he knew facing off against a big man with gingersnap hair, and he was menacing at Rick. Rick had on his psycho face, like he might unhinge, and he looked like abject shit, like he had been through the ringer. Glenn had been trying to restrain him.

“Hey, Big Red,” said Daryl, bow up. “I got no idea who you are, but if you don't back the fuck up right now you're gonna get a damn arrow to the chest.”

“Daryl?” said Rick.

When Daryl had busted inside, the earth stopped spinning on its axis. You could hear the crickets in the rafters as everybody looked right at him. Big Red, he took had taken a step back with his hands up and his handlebar mustache, looking like a toy soldier. Rick froze. He dropped everything, his hands, his guard, and he rushed to Daryl and then he was crying, clamping him so hard into his embrace, it was like getting the wind knocked out, and his long-held hope restored in one fell swoop. “You’re alive,” he said.

At first, Daryl had been too surprised to reckon with his response. It was a mix of adrenaline, relief. But being in a room full of faces he recognized and having Rick there, he soon found he had to close his eyes against the rush of emotion, like a fever. “So are you,” said Daryl.

“Oh my god,” said Maggie, she was pushing past the pews now, tall and pretty as a sunflower, making her way for the door. Beth had come inside and Daryl and Rick both watched as she started crying and then she and Maggie held each other like bright beauties and fell to their knees in the church. Bob came in next, made a joke, and Sasha was there, and suddenly everybody was laughing and crying, and Big Red was just standing, incredulous, off to the side as if something had changed irrevocably inside him, and his hands had lowered and his eyes widened and he, himself, looked teary and renewed by the grace of god.

“Sweet Jesus son of Mary,” he said. 

“That’s Abraham,” said Rick. “We just, uh. We had a…disagreement.”

“This ain’t finished,” said Big Red, real upright and responsible, his chin high. “But we can put it on pause.”

“This is Noah,” said Daryl. Noah had been standing timidly, some ways off to the side. “Noah, get your ass over here.”

Noah came immediately. He had set down the axe, leaned it against the door jamb and held out his hand. “Rick, right?” he said.

Rick smiled, shook on it. “Yes, sir.”

“Noah’s with us,” said Daryl. “You can trust him.”

“I got no doubt,” said Rick.

When Daryl looked up then, and past Rick, he saw Beth holding baby Judith with Glenn’s arm around her shoulders. Carl was smiling in his freckled language, and Michonne was there, too, and Tyreese. Beth’s face was red and streaked with tears and it was like seeing her for the first time.

“Where’s Carol?” he said.

There was silence, between then, and Rick's face sunk as if the answer was not simple, as if there was more to say than felt comforting, or right. Daryl had just assumed she would be anywhere Rick was. He had never considered the alternative. He felt like a fool.

“Is she dead,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know,” said Rick. He had his hands on his hips, his chin down. He lowered his voice. “She was here, with us. She saved our lives. But all her stuff's gone, and she went missin not long after Bob. Nobody’s seen her.”

“Gareth said she drove off,” said Bob, like he had suddenly awakened from a deep sleep. He was leaning against Sasha in one of the pews in the back row. “That’s all I heard. She was in a car, and she drove off.”

“Who the hell is Gareth?” said Daryl.

“That Terminus douche?” said Abraham. “He the one that took you?”

“Bob,” said Sasha. She had her hand on his knee.

“They was on our tail,” said Bob. “Truth be told. I think they was coming for everybody in the end. But Daryl took care of it.”

“I didn’t know who they was,” said Daryl, like he was embarrassed. “We was on our way to Terminus when—I just knew they had Bob, and they seemed a little…unhinged. It was mostly opportunity, I didn’t do nothing.”

“You saved my life.”

“They tried killing us,” said Rick, reassuring. “At Terminus. If it weren’t for Carol…Anyway, thank you. Daryl, thank you.” He clasped one hand to Daryl’s shoulder.

Daryl knew he was missing something, or a lot of things. He was glad he had somehow helped them, even if it was unwitting, but still. He lowered his voice. “Bob said she drove off,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would she do that?”

But it was then that Bob started coughing. His temperature had gotten very high, his eyes bloodshot. He looked at Sasha, resigned to his adoration for her, but then she straightened up and got very tense. She said, “What’s wrong.”

He smiled, weary, always thankful, even when it seemed there was nothing left. Then he looked at Daryl. “Thank you. You saved my life. Even if it is short-lived, it’s worth it.” The whole thing almost served to make him laugh, till he looked back at her. “I’m bit.”

That night when it was quiet, and all you could hear was breathing and whispers and Sasha crying and then going into the room with Bob and then coming back out again, crying, and Tyreese talking to her, Daryl lie coldly in a pew at the back of the church. He was staring up at the ceiling, full of cracks and water stains. The priest man, he was a little weird and shaky like a dog that got kicked once, and he came around, and he offered Daryl a blanket. It was warm and a kind gesture, and Daryl accepted on manners, only after making sure that nobody else needed it more, and even still he just left it hanging over the pew and sat up so that he could see the whole church, and the people, and the statue of the Virgin Mary, showing her hands.

Beth had been talking to Maggie for a long time, just talking, and looking down at her hands and telling their whole true story, top to bottom. She’d taken her hair down, and it was just sitting on her shoulders now, yellow and good. He looked at her, time to time, then back down at his hands where he was taking apart a cigarette and shredding the tobacco to the floor just for the hell of it. Noah was asleep in the front row. Since he was genial and unassuming, he fit in easily. There were a lot of people here that Daryl didn’t know. Abraham, Rosita, Tara, some guy with a mullet named Eugene, looked like one of them kids who used to play Magic Cards at recess, was supposed to be some kind of fancy scientist on the Human Genome Project. They had a mission, and that’s the thing Abraham had been all pissed off about, apparently.

Bus was leaving for D.C. first thing in the morning.

A little while later, Beth came and sat down next to him. He felt his chest warm up, and his blood pumping. His hair had all fallen in his face, and he peaked at her. Right away, she grabbed his hand and hid it inside both of hers. She kissed his knuckles with her eyes closed. She looked very tired.

“Maggie told me about Carol,” she said, like it made her nervous, like she didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry, Daryl. I wish she was here.”

“Me, too,” he said, sighing. “Sounds like—I don’t know. Way Rick told it, sounds like she didn’t feel she belonged no more.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Beth, shaking her head. “We all done things. She belongs. She just, she just needs time. To forget, or to process, by herself. You understand. Maybe she’ll come back.”

“Bus is leaving,” said Daryl. “Won’t be nobody here for her to come back to. Nobody alive anyway.”

“We can leave a note,” said Beth. “A map. If she does come back, then she can come meet us.”

He thought about Beth, leaving that note for the Undertaker, at the funeral home. Her handwriting in blue pen, all full of curly-qs. He tried believing her. He knew now that she was easy to want to believe. He said, “Okay. We’ll leave a note.”

She smiled, weary. He thought maybe she would say something about Bob, but it was too much. Too close. Talking about Carol, that had hope, even if it was slim, knotted deep inside. Everything else they just let simmer between them. Grady, the grove, the crow's nest, all of it working together to bring them here, to this very moment. She set her head on Daryl’s shoulder. He kissed her on the hair, pushed it all back behind her ear, because that is how he felt. Their story had changed. It had gotten bigger. In all of this, still, they were just trying to reassure one another. That is why they existed. They sat for a while, vibrating, waiting, grieving, and watching the strange priest man go up in his sleeplessness, light some more candles on the altar.

_The Future_

“We were supposed to have a week," said Rick.

He stared down at the asphalt, then to the left of his cowboy boots while the rest of Alexandria stood around in a liminal fear. It was a hot day, and Enid had burned the cookies. It wasn’t her fault. 

Negan clapped Rick on the shoulder and shook him hard, like an old friend. “Don’t worry, Rick,” he said. “I ain’t here for your stuff. Not today.”

“Then why are you here.”

“I’m here,” said Negan, “because I have learned something new, something I felt the need to investigate.” With Lucille over his right shoulder, he got big then and addressed the town. “Ladies and gentlemen. You all know me by now. I am Negan, and I am here looking for something, or, someone, very specific.”

Everybody stood very still, sweating in the mid-day heat. Some looked at one another, or down at their own hands, as if accused of a crime they could not possibly have committed. Rick was staring back at the house, and how it was supposed to be peaceful. A place of rest, being together. He would not make a sound.

Negan said, “Would someone be so kind as to introduce me to the fair Mrs. Dixon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End: Part 2
> 
> Next up - _Part 3: The Virginians_


	9. Don't Blame it On the Crows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **PART 3: THE VIRGINIANS**

After the truth came out about Eugene, and the group was holed up somewhere in the Roanoke Valley, right near the Smith Mountain Lake in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Maggie started noticing things.

They were in a trailer park in a low holler, and it had high chain link fences on all sides and in several of the trailers it looked like they’d been cooking meth and making moonshine. Whoever had lived here was long gone, and the walker presence was minimal down here in the valley, so Rick thought it was a good place to lie low until they figured out their next move. Daryl knew this sort of country and he had been hunting most of their food for days. Him, Beth, and Noah always ate together, like a little unit, and then Noah would go away to hang out on the perimeter with Tara or Rosita and Abraham, and Beth and Daryl would still sit talking for such long periods of time, Maggie wondered what on earth they could be going on about. Sometimes, Beth would sing while she was washing clothes in the mornings on the lake, and Daryl would sit fletching and glance at her from time to time with his deep blue and mysterious gaze, and once, Maggie saw Beth splash him with water from a bucket, and he grabbed it out of her hands and dumped the whole thing over her head, which made her scream and then laugh as she squeezed the water out of her tank top.

When Maggie mentioned it all to Glenn one night, he just stared at her like she was high. “They’re together,” he said, and went back to cleaning his gun by the fire. “Isn’t it obvious?” 

"I mean, I guess?" said Maggie. "But she didn't tell me."

Glenn shrugged. "So? Maybe it's new. Maybe she just doesn't wanna talk about it yet. I don't know. Who cares? We didn't tell people about us right away either. Just ask her if you're so concerned."

"I ain't concerned," said Maggie. "I just want the truth."

Beth had told her everything that had happened after the prison, about Grady, about the grove, the guys from Terminus. But she hadn’t told her about Daryl. Why?

One day, right before dusk, Daryl went out with his bow, and Beth went with him. He was showing her how to track wildlife. Against her better instincts and only because she could not help herself, Maggie followed them out of the trailer park and into the woods. She ducked behind a whole mess of blackberry bramble and watched Beth shoot a squirrel with the crossbow, then, in a fit of excitement, grab Daryl’s hand. He then softened in a considerable manner that Maggie had never seen, and he tucked a piece of hair behind Beth’s ear, and he kissed her in the speckled light by the river. It was extremely romantic.

It was also such a shock that Maggie lost her footing and tipped over into the bramble, getting thorns in her jeans. Beth and Daryl both heard, and Daryl pointed the bow into the bushes and barked, “Who’s there? Come out.”

Maggie came out with her hands up, feeling stupid as hell.

“Maggie?” said Beth.

“Hi.”

“What are you doin here? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” said Maggie. She looked around, shoved her hands in her pockets. “I just—Rick was wondering when y’all would be back. I saw you come through this way.”

“We’ll be back by dark,” said Daryl, flipping the hair out of his face. “We’re tracking that damn deer. Unless you scared it off.”

“Sorry,” said Maggie.

“You wanna help?” said Beth.

“No. No, I’m okay. But thank you.”

“Tell Rick not to worry,” said Daryl. “We got it, okay?”

Maggie nodded, self-conscious. Then she turned around to go.

“Hey. Are there any blackberries left in that bush?” said Beth. “I been trying to forage for um, but I ain’t had no luck.”

Maggie looked over her shoulder, shook her head. “Picked clean.” She shrugged. “Must be the crows.”

“Yeah,” said Beth.

When Maggie was gone, Daryl tugged on Beth’s shirt. “Come on.”

“Wait,” said Beth, staring after Maggie like there was something on her mind.

“What’s wrong?” said Daryl.

“Nothin,” she said. “I just—I haven’t told Maggie yet.”

“Told her what?”

“You know,” said Beth. “About you.”

Daryl looked at his shoes. They needed replacing. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just ain’t really come up?”

“You don’t want to, or—?”

“What?” said Beth. “No, Daryl. Of course I do. I just, what do I say?”

A bunch of crows were going off, triangulated in the distance, just like Maggie had said.

“I mean, she’s your sister,” said Daryl. “What would you normally tell her?”

“I normally wouldn’t,” said Beth. “That’s the thing. When we was younger, we didn’t talk about this sort of thing. What would you tell Merle if he was alive?”

Daryl found this to be funny. “Wouldn’t tell Merle nothing. I’d hide you from Merle.”

She got pink in the face. “Ha ha.”

“What did you tell Maggie about Jimmy,” said Daryl. “Or Zack?”

“That was a lifetime ago. It ain’t the same.”

“It ain’t?”

“No,” said Beth.

It was a strange and defining moment in the woods that day.

“Then what is it?” said Daryl.

“I didn’t—you’re just different,” she said, and she looked right at him with her wide, earnest eyes. She shrugged. “You’re more.”

Daryl bit his lip, studied her. Then he said, “Well, tell her that then.” He yanked her on the ponytail, smiled, then went past, business as usual. “Let’s go. We’re losin the light.”

“Richmond, huh?” said Rick. He was in his trailer, with Noah and Abraham, looking down at a map that was spectacularly dirty. “You said your neighborhood, it’s got walls?”

“Walls, and a gate,” said Noah. “It’s safe.”

Rick sighed, holding his hands on his hips. Abraham was chewing on a piece of bark so that his red mustache wiggled. He was stern and positive, nodded briskly. “I say we do it. The way here was relatively unobstructed. Hopefully the rest will go the same.”

“I have to agree,” said Rick. “I just—Noah, you realize, they might not be there. I ain’t trying to scare you. I’m just trying to be realistic. A lot of time has passed.”

“I know,” said Noah. He was just excited to get a try out of it at all. It was about 150 miles to Richmond from this part of the Roanoke River. “Thank you, no matter what. For tryin.”

“Thanks for the option,” said Rick. “Now where the hell is Daryl? I’m starvin.”

Noah smiled, looked out the window. “He’s with Beth. I think they’re tryin to bring in a deer.”

“That all they’re trying for?” said Abraham, giving him a long and knowing eye.

“That ain’t none of my business.”

“Well, whatever’s goin on,” said Rick, folding up the map, “I hope it leads to a whole shitload of venison.”

“You’re tellin me,” said Noah.

Beth and Daryl didn’t catch up with the deer, but they did stumble upon several wild boar, took down a small female. When they got back, Daryl butchered it and they cooked about half while Rosita showed Beth how to cure the rest.

When everybody was fed and the sun was gone behind the ridge, the fireflies came alive in the greenery. Rick and Daryl took first watch from the top of a bright blue double-wide, while Noah was playing a card game with Tara and Eugene and Rosita by the light of a lantern. Maggie walked around the fire and sat on a log, right next to Beth. She had been alone there, mending a hole in Eugene’s jacket. He had been somewhat on the outs since the revelation, had got the shit kicked out his face by Abraham. Beth tried not to judge him too harshly. She tried to be sympathetic.

“Hey,” said Maggie. She tucked the hair behind her ears. She seemed kind of nervous.

Beth immediately set down her sewing and looked her in the eye. “Hey.”

“So,” said Maggie. “I, uh. I have a confession.”

“All right.”

Maggie put her chin her hands, staring at the fire, then straightened up like a board. “I thought maybe there was something going on between you and Daryl, so I followed you into the woods today. That’s why I was there.”

“You what?” said Beth.

“It’s true,” said Maggie. “I’m so sorry. It was stupid.”

“You followed us?” said Beth. She got quiet, embarrassed. “What did you see?”

“I saw you shoot a squirrel,” she said. “And, I saw you kiss.”

Beth gave her a long, questionable look. She wasn’t mad.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Maggie. “I shouldn’t have followed you. I know that. But I was curious. I mean, it’s Daryl.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just didn’t really know what to say, or how to tell you.”

“Do you love him?”

Beth looked down at the needle and brown thread in her lap. It all looked foreign now. “Probably. I don’t know, I mean. I never been in love before.”

“Looked like love to me,” said Maggie.

Beth sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s okay,” said Maggie.

“I know he’s older,” said Beth. “But I don’t care.”

“None of that matters,” said Maggie. “Daryl’s a good man. He’s loyal and strong, chivalrous, and Daddy liked him. Daddy would be proud if he was here. And you don't have to be afraid to tell me things. Okay?”

"Okay."

Maggie linked her arm in Beth’s, kissed her on the cheek. They put their heads together, watched the sparks as they blitzed like ghosts off the logs on the fire.

Meanwhile, up on top of the bright blue double-wide, Daryl and Rick were sitting in a couple of lawn chairs with their rifles. Daryl smoked half a cigarette, and Rick had one, too. It was such a beautiful night, so clear you could have sipped the sky. Everything was quiet all around them. These woods felt safe, but they both knew better.

“We ain’t had much time to talk since you found us,” said Rick, taking a drag. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in probably ten years. It was kicking his head up into the clouds and making him high.

“Yeah, well. Time flies when you're havin fun, I guess.”

“If we go to Richmond,” said Rick, “we may never find Carol. I wanted to talk to you first, before we make the final decision.”

“Carol left on her own,” said Daryl, hanging his head. He was pissed off, but there was nothing he could do about it. "We gotta go. If she wants to, she’ll find us again.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am.”

"Then we'll do it," said Rick. "If you're okay with the decision."

"It's what's best for the group," said Daryl. "I mean, we can't go back, and we can't stay here. Some holler in the middle of nowhere. It's fine for now, but there ain't no true high ground. We get overrun, that's it. It'll be just like the quarry, back in Atlanta."

Rick leaned back in the chair. It creaked under his weight. He pondered for a while. He was ponderous, as a man. “I just—I wanted to say, that you finding us, you, Beth, and Noah, that was a blessing. It was the blessing we needed. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Daryl put the cigarette out on the plastic arm rest, tossed the butt into the weeds. “Same, man.”

“Now, I’m gonna ask you something. Mostly outta boredom, a little because I’m just genuinely curious.”

“Okay.”

“You and Beth,” he said. “Something goin on there?”

Daryl stared at him, sidelong. Rick was his best friend. Daryl was so thankful to be here, with him, tonight, and on any mission there was ever gonna be. Loved him like a brother. But he didn’t know how to talk about shit. Or, he sure thought he didn’t.

So he just nodded, looked down at his knuckles, those dumbass tattoos from when he was eighteen, piss drunk in a roadside bar in Macon, just trying to look tough and impress some girl whose name he couldn’t even remember anymore. "Guess there is," he said.

“That’s real good." Rick flicked the cigarette, squinted at it, watched it die on the roof of the double-wide. “I’m real happy for you guys. I truly am.”

“I don’t get it,” said Daryl, leaning against the rifle, crossbow by his feet. “I mean, before all this, a girl like Beth wouldn’t look twice at a guy like me. She probably woulda thought I was creepy, or something.”

Rick waved him off. “You don’t know that. And besides, it ain’t before no more.” He looked at him, seriously, in the light from the moon. “We all get a second chance now, a second life. You wanna spend yours with Beth, I think that’s worthy. Be thankful.”

“I am.”

“You love her?” He dropped his head back to stare up at the stars. “You don’t have to answer.”

“Maybe,” said Daryl, hiding his face. He surprised himself, coming clean like that. 

“You told her?”

“No. I mean, I don’t got a lot of experience. With that sorta...thing.”

“You’ll figure it out,” said Rick. “Beth’s a good girl. I know it. She just sorta, stands in the background most of the time. But she’s done a lot for me, for Carl and Judith. The way she just stepped up. After Lori.” Rick closed his eyes. “Without her, I don’t know where I woulda been. She took care of my child while I was goddam losing my mind.”

“She was happy to,” said Daryl. “She’ll always protect Judith.”

“I know she will.” Rick was getting dreamy. He had a habit for this. He liked to think big, to invite the whole universe to sit with him in starry communion. He was emotional, but he didn’t show it a lot. “I miss Hershel,” he said. “Goddam I miss him. I think about that day, all the time. Every night, it keeps me awake. I wish he was here.”

“Me, too,” said Daryl. "I think about it every day."

“How’s she doin, after everything.”

“She’s okay,” said Daryl, staring off into the starlit trees. “She’s strong.”

They sat, listening to the frogs.

Beth was asleep in the bedroom of the double-wide when he got back, a few hours before dawn. Noah was crashed, shirtless, on the couch. It was warm inside, real stuffy, everything in mauve, 80s tropical vibes, ugly trim with the furniture stained yellow in a haze of nicotine. It reminded him of the place his cousin Aimee had used to live before she went to foster care and then he only saw her on Christmas.

Daryl had been sleeping on the floor ever since they got there. He never got to bed the same time Beth did anyway, and he was happy to let Noah have the couch. He didn’t mind, had not given any thought to sharing the bed. That was a no-no. Until Beth said something, he just assumed and would not even so much as dip his toes into the idea. Daryl expected little and was good at compartmentalization. He got down on the carpet, exhausted to his bones, took off his shoes, his vest, lie on his back, and closed his eyes, listened to the silence, and Noah’s breathing. He fell asleep almost immediately.

About an hour later, Beth woke up, startled. She’d had her dream again, that she was alone. It was always the same. She was back at Grady, and she was alone. Daryl wasn’t there, and Noah wasn’t there. Nobody was there. It was just her, in her blue scrubs, alone, and she didn’t know what to do.

She sat up and fluffed her hair. It was hot as hell, and she was sweating bullets, so she cracked a window, felt the cool air on her skin, could hear Abraham and Rosita, talking up on the roof next-door, keeping watch. Their voices were a comfort. She saw Noah through the open doorway, lying on the couch with his leg dangling off, and Daryl sprawled out on his stomach on the pink, carpeted living room floor. He was too much of a gentleman to even ask about the bed. They’d slept beside one another how many times out in those woods, before Grady? But now it was different. Things had changed, and a bed wasn’t the same as the forest floor. She knew him, and she knew as much.

So she left the bedroom, stepped over his legs and lie down next to him on the carpet. It was cooler down there anyway, and she just wanted to hear his breathing up close, smell his skin. She placed her hand on his back and felt his heartbeat, and his chest going up and down. When she touched him, he stirred a little. He turned toward her, but he didn’t open his eyes. He said, “Beth.”

“Shh,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

He held her hand to his chest, because he knew exactly where it was without even looking, and he was gone again. She fell back asleep, too. She didn’t have anymore bad dreams that night.

When they finally woke up, the sun was hot, and Noah was sitting at the kitchen table, tense, staring out the window.

“What’s goin on?” said Daryl.

“Rosita and Abraham spotted walkers, a little after dawn. A couple miles out. We’re leaving soon.”

“Why didn’t anybody wake us?” said Daryl.

“It’s under control,” said Noah. “You need your rest, man.” He looked at Beth. “Nice hair.”

“Shut up,” she said. But it was true. She could feel it, growing with the humidity, becoming a jungle. She got up off the floor and dusted off her jeans. “I’m gonna go dunk my head in the lake. That sounds so good. You guys wanna come?”

“Sure,” said Noah. “I’ll meet you there. First, I need food.” He picked up his gun, checked the clip, then he saluted Daryl. “Hope there’s some of that ham left.”

“It’s boar.”

“Whatever.”

The screen door slammed behind him.

“I’m gonna find Rick,” said Daryl. He had dragged himself to the couch, was putting his shoes on. He felt heavy as lead. “Figure out what’s goin on.”

“You need new shoes,” said Beth. "Geez. Look at those things."

“Yeah, you're right. You know where I can find a Nordstrom Rack around here?”

She laughed. He yawned.

“Hey,” she said. She sat down beside him.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor. You know that, right?”

“What?”

“I said, you don’t have to sleep on the floor. I mean, you can if you want, and I know we don’t always got a bed to sleep on anyway, but if we ever do, you don’t have to sleep on the floor.” She kissed him on the forehead, then on the nose. Her hair was big like a cloud, or like cotton candy. Didn’t matter, for how pretty she was. He touched it.

“You sure about that?” said Daryl.

She cupped his face with her hands. “I’m your girl, Daryl Dixon,” she said. “Don’t forget it.”

“Couldn’t if I tried,” he said.

“Well, good,” said Beth. She picked her knife up off the table, hooked it to her belt. “I’m going for some of that leftover ham, too, I think. You want some?”

“Boar.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, and then she left.

Daryl sat for a minute, feeling like shit, staring at the ugly pink interior of that double-wide. He hated it, truth be told, but now that they were leaving, it felt like home.

That day, they drove 100 miles before the bus broke down on US Route 360. They were in a rural town called Jetersville, some ways north of Fort Pickett. The town was small and seemed to be part of a Civil War trail. It had many abandoned historical places. They found a big white farmhouse at the end of a dirt road, which reminded Beth and Maggie of their old white farmhouse back in Senoia, and so Rick, Daryl, Abraham, and Glenn kicked the door in and swept the place clean for walkers. There were a couple strung up on the second floor, hanging by their necks, husband and wife, presumably. They had left a note on the table that said, _God, protect our sons at UVA. Forgive our sins._ Daryl kept it, gave it to Beth, who burned it in a vigil outside. Noah didn’t like the omen. He had gone to UVA. He could’ve known the guys mentioned in the note. He wondered what happened to them.

There was less wildlife here. Daryl only brought in squirrels, but Glenn, Maggie, and Michonne had a productive run to the local market. They found plenty of canned goods still locked up in a truck outside, some medicine, bandages, and even a couple bottles of rubbing alcohol. Glenn and Eugene worked on the car, needed parts, which Rick determined they would split up and scavenge first thing in the morning. They all ate dinner out of cans with plastic silverware by candlelight, divvied up the shifts to keep watch, and Father Gabriel said a prayer for the people who had lived there, and all those they had lost, in days gone by. Sasha sat by herself as he said it, looking out the window with her knees pulled up to her chest. She didn't eat much. But then Tyreese sat down beside her. She put her head on his shoulder, and Beth felt so full in her heart she thought she might burst.

She went outside before sunset to forage, and she finally found a bush of blackberries, bursting with crop. She picked them all and washed them in a wooden bucket she found by the shed. Outside, it was warm as the light began to die. This little town reminded her of the version of Senoia her daddy had used to tell her stories about, over cards late at night. It felt haunted, too, and full of darkness and sad history, the people all gone. Where'd they go? she wondered. She left out the berries on the kitchen table and put baby Judith to bed around eight. Judith shared a room with Carl, Rick, and Michonne on the second floor. Rick and Michonne had drawn first shift. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and a small murphy bed in the downstairs office where Sasha slept, and Tyreese on a blanket on the floor. Daryl and Beth bunked with Glenn and Maggie, in one of the kids’ rooms upstairs. Glenn and Daryl drew the 2am shift and went to bed early, one on each bunk bed, while Maggie and Beth unrolled a couple sleeping bags on the floor. After the boys were out, they weren’t tired, so they pulled a big, plaid blanket over their heads like when they were kids, turned on a flashlight, and shared a handful of blackberries for a treat.

“Your boyfriend sleeps so quiet,” whispered Maggie. “For some reason I thought Daryl would snore.”

“Never. But you slept in a room with Daryl before, ain't you?”

“Sort of. But to be honest, until now, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him sleep. Not like this, anyway. He's so...peaceful.”

“Does Glenn snore?”

“No.”

They laughed. Hershel had used to snore. It’s why they were talking about it in the first place. He had loved blackberries, too. And he had told a story once of how his grandfather, whose name was also Hershel Greene, had made a crow his pet in 1955. He clipped its tongue so it could talk, said he'd taught it to recite Shakespeare. On that last one, Beth and Maggie both called bullshit.

"You think Richmond will work out?" said Maggie. "Noah seems optimistic."

"I think it has to," said Beth. "One way or another."

"What do you mean."

"I mean like, let's say it ain't the paradise we're hoping for. Maybe we can't stay, or something bad happens. It'll lead us somewhere. We just gotta have faith. Losing faith, that's what gets people killed, or worse." She thought about Joan, the little handful of lollipops on the windowsill back in Atlanta. She looked down at the blackberries. They were staining her fingers. "We all seen it happen."

Maggie hugged her under the blanket, so hard it hurt a little. "I'm so glad you guys found us. I don't know where we'd be otherwise."

"Me, too."

The next day, with Daryl, Rick, and Glenn out scavenging for car parts, several rogue walkers wandered on the property. Sasha sniped a bunch from the roof of the bus while Rosita, Tara, Noah, Maggie, and Abraham lurked the perimeter to take out the stragglers. Beth was with Judith, foraging for more blackberries in the bramble that grew wild around the house when one of them came out of nowhere and stuck its hand through the fence. Judith just stared with big eyes, but Beth got pissed, reached through the bramble and grabbed it by the hair immediately, shoved her knife in its cranium. It died, and she fell backward, flustered. The cast on her wrist had protected her skin from the thorns in the bush, but it was so itchy, so cracked and dirty and such an ugly piece of shit, she got really determined all of a sudden and started sawing and prying it off with her knife. Judith sat in blissful ignorance on the blanket, watching, eating blackberries by the handful, her face and her mouth stained purple as Beth finally got the stupid thing off and chucked it over the fence as fast and hard as she could. While she stared out past the place where it landed, she saw a bunch of crows, flying down from the trees in the distance, dive-bombing walkers in the field by the dirt road, picking their eyeballs out. like a spectacle. 

She looked down at her bare wrist. She had a tan line and the skin was all white and caked with a thin, sticky layer of dirt. She felt spectacularly free, moved her wrist in all directions. It was weird as hell, but it didn't hurt. She felt heat prickles on the back of her neck, surveyed the otherwise peaceful afternoon. She looked at the dead walker, then to Judith. Beth said, "That's how you do it." Judith giggled. Beth wiped her knife off in the grass, stuck it back in its leather sheathe, and to the soundtrack of the crows and Sasha's gunshots ringing out like wildfire, continued berry-picking like nothing had ever happened. 


	10. Us

1.

Noah sat down in the middle of the street. The land was solemn and still, dust-filled and quiet, except for the cicadas buzzing stupidly in the trees. Beth had wrapped her arms all the way around his shoulders, like vines, her cheek resting against his back. He wept, looking down at his wrists. He was tall, thought Beth. Maybe he would even get taller. Like a beanstalk. Maybe he had gotten his hopes up, she thought. Or maybe getting your hopes up was the way it was supposed to be.

“We can do a quick sweep,” said Glenn.

Daryl said nothing. His muscles felt ice cold and constricted, crossbow over his shoulder. This was a nice neighborhood, the kind you see in movies and TV sitcoms, with cul-de-sacs, and white picket fences, old trees that had grown tall. But a lot of them had burned down, or they had huge, black scorch marks in their trunks.

Rick had his chin to his chest, his beard getting long. Michonne was out ahead. She had chopped up three walkers in obligatory fashion.

“I’ll stay with him,” said Tyreese.

“Me, too,” said Beth.

“I ain’t goin nowhere,” said Daryl.

Rick radioed Maggie, told her what they’d found there, in Richmond.

“We made it,” he said, scrubbing at his beard in the hot September sun. “It’s gone.”

Beth, Daryl, and Tyreese followed Noah. He had begun to walk toward one of the houses in particular, a little ways into the greenery. There were garden gnomes and porch swings, weathervanes. Chrysanthemums and hosta bushes and butterflies. Daryl let Beth go ahead of him, focused on her hair, lemony and gold. She was a lantern.

Noah seemed calm, but then he picked up speed once they got to the sidewalk. You could see, the front door was wide open. There was some blood on the jamb. Daryl stepped up quick, put his hand firmly on Noah’s shoulder . “No, man.”

“This is my house,” he said.

“You don’t wanna go in there,” said Tyreese.

“Yes I do. Let me see it.”

“It’s okay,” said Beth. She went right on up the porch steps. “We’ll all go. Right?”

Daryl drew his knife. It made its cold, metal sound. “Fine. But me first.”

Inside, the house was ransacked, stripped, everything gone or in pieces on the floor. There was a lot of blood on the white walls. Noah’s mother was dead in the living room. She lie on the rug beside the coffee table, wearing a dress, and a much of her skull was missing. It looked like it had been months.

The shock had worn off. There was only resignation. Everything felt dull. Noah picked up a big, heavy blanket off the couch, and he set it over her body, covering her face. “I tried to get back sooner,” he said to her. And he sat down beside her for a long time. He didn’t cry.

“Your brothers,” said Daryl. He should not have said it. He glanced up the stairs, a long and sad tunnel.

Noah didn’t answer anyway.

“I’ll check out the second floor,” said Tyreese.

“I got your back,” said Daryl. “Beth.”

“Yeah.”

She was standing in the living room, staring down at Noah and his mother, covered in a blanket.

“Keep an eye on things down here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Anything turns up, you holler.”

“I will.”

They went upstairs.

Beth sat down on the couch. It was blue plaid and aside from the blood and the rubble, looked like it had once been very nice. She looked down at her converse and stayed quiet.

After a little while, Noah said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m so sorry, Noah,” she said. “I’ll always be here for you. And so will Daryl.”

She thought she saw him smile to himself, though it was cynical. He said, “I can’t believe I ever thought this would work out. I think I always knew, somehow, that this is what we’d be walking into. But I was just, I was hoping I was wrong.”

“There’s no shame in having hope.”

“What am I gonna do now? This was my home, my whole life.”

“You’re with us,” she said. “You always was. We’ll find a new home. We’re a family. It’s what we do.”

He reached for her hand. She held it steadfastly.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Daryl heard the floorboards creaking under his feet. The hallway felt long and cold and red and ugly, and he moved slowly behind Tyreese, thinking about Beth and Noah, then Bob, then Joan back at Grady. Hershel. Zack. Sophia. There was nothing he could do about any of it. Just nothing.

When they got to the end of the hall, there was a closed door, sunlight shining in a line underneath. Shuffling around back there like it didn’t hear them, was a walker. Tyreese had gone into one of the bedrooms where there was a dead kid lying on a twin bed, and the hopelessness put Daryl over so that he kicked down the door at the end of the hall and put a bolt right into the poor thing’s skull. It was a kid. It was Noah’s brother. Both of the dead kids were Noah’s brothers.

Daryl looked around and he was standing in a master bedroom that looked mostly untouched. Looked like the kid had locked himself inside and survived whatever assault had taken place here, then maybe died of starvation or maybe he had a wound that Daryl couldn’t see, maybe something worse. He went back to the hallway. He thought he might throw up.

Tyreese was standing out there, holding a sad little picture frame. Inside it was a simple painting of a white house. He said, “I found this.”

“We gotta go, man.”

“It ain’t right,” said Tyreese. “None of this. Dead kids?” He looked fucked up, real bad, thought Daryl. “Shit.”

“It’s what it is,” said Daryl. He shook Tyreese by the shoulder. “Hey. It’s what it is. Noah ain’t alone. And he’s tough. He’ll be okay.”

Tyreese looked at Daryl with his eyes full of regret. “You’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“I was with Carol,” said Tyreese. He looked back down at the picture frame, like he was embarrassed. “I was with Carol, and Judith, and—it was after it all went down.”

Daryl just listened. Downstairs, he could hear Beth and Noah talking about something, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

“It all went bad,” said Tyreese. He shook his head. He looked around, like he was searching for someone. “It was like this. All rotten inside.” Then he closed his eyes and sucked it all back, but Daryl could tell that whatever it was, he was trying to forget. “It went bad.”

“I know.”

They went back downstairs. Beth and Noah were standing by the front door, looking blankly back toward the living room.

“What was that noise?” said Beth.

“We, uh. We found them,” Daryl said to Noah. “It’s done. You aint’ gotta worry.”

“Here,” said Tyreese. He had that picture frame. He gave it to Noah. “Brought this for you. I thought it was nice.”

Noah looked at the picture, just a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Somewhere, you could still hear a clock, ticking on the wall. “Thank you,” he said.

2.

After they got out of Richmond, they took the I-95 North for as long as they could, spent the night in the van, and then somewhere around Battlefield, the pile-ups got too outrageous. There were walkers pinned between the cars and trucks and Rick deemed the desperate nature of the maze they were in to be impassable. He was tired. They were all very tired. They left the freeway, went on country roads, headed westerly with no kind of progress in mind aside from survival. They were in some ways, headed toward D.C.. Whatever lie ahead, it was had left, but getting there was an obstacle course of trees, dead, drought, upturned automobiles, fire.

The bus ran out of gas on something called Catharpin Road. It was deep backwater, on the other side of a massive military park, an old Civil War battlefield of Fredricksburg. They went on foot for miles. It was the end of a hot, dry summer and all the little creeks in the hills were dried-up and all the animals had gone away or died. Glenn and Maggie found an old bar and convenience store at a four corners. Seemed like something from another era. Daryl and Beth went in, too, found booze and a few books of matches. Beth folded up some bar towels and stuffed them into her purple backpack. Daryl smoked a cigarette in silence while standing out on the porch, staring into the dilapidated, empty wilderness into which they’d come. He had never been out of Georgia, until now. Virginia.

Back on the road, they all walked, exhausted. Beth was carrying Judith toward the front, near Rick. There were walkers following behind them, at a safe distance. When the time was right, they took them out, but it was slow and dangerous. Beth only watched, holding Judith, standing next to Father Gabriel, Noah, Tara, Tyreese, all of them behind Rosita, and Sasha. Sasha was still quiet and far away, but she was coming to. She kept them safe with her rifle. At one point, Eugene insisted on helping. He hit his head on the asphalt toward the end. Tara helped him clean it up with some mud and a little bit of water from her canteen. They persevered.

As they walked, Carl caught up with Beth. Her arms were heavy, but it’s what it was. He had been some ways behind with Michonne for a while. They had gone off the road, looking for water, said all they scrounged was a bunch of frogs, belly-up in a dried ravine. He had found an old music box as well. It was dirty, and bsuted, but it was also delicate and fancy with a little spinning ballerina inside. He gave it to Beth and held Judith for a while.

“Where’d you find it?” said Beth. She was delighted.

“In an old suitcase by the side of the road. Looked like it had fallen off the back of a truck or something.”

“It’s really beautiful. Thanks, Carl.”

He blushed. “So where’s Daryl?”

“He went out, to try and find water.”

“Cool.”

He dipped, just like that. He took baby Judith with him, caught up to Rick, who picked her up and touched his nose to hers. It was so sweet, Beth smiled and felt heat prickles around her temples. 

“Teen Sheriff’s got a major crush on you,” said Noah. He had left his fireman’s axe behind with the van, traded it in for a machete, which he held in a makeshift leather sheath over his shoulder. He had heavy bags under his eyes and he looked like shit, but he was smiling all of a sudden. She hadn’t seen him smile in days. “Can’t say I blame him.”

“You’re crazy,” said Beth.

“Where’s Daryl?”

“In the woods, looking for water.”

“Thank god.”

Father Gabriel was off to the side a little bit, walking alone. She noticed this. He was always alone. In that moment, he was just loosening his collar in the mid-day heat. He didn’t know left from right sometimes. Out of nowhere then, a walker stumbled out of the woods. Beth took her knife out. It got kind of close—a woman with red hair, a wild animal. He cried out in fear. Glenn was already there. He reached over, almost nonchalant, nabbed Father Gabriel by the shirt, and yanked him out of the way while Maggie stuck the walker dead with her knife. It hit the concrete and was over fast.

Father Gabriel looked terrified, as if he had just survived a major ordeal.

“Thank you,” he said.

Maggie dusted off his shirt. She was cool under pressure. “Watch out, Father.”

“I’m trying.”

Glenn gave him a look, like rolled his eyes. It was sort of funny, even as the whole thing was pretty messed up. Glenn had a hidden humor inside him. He was practical and sharper than people realized. That’s what Beth saw. They kept walking.

Beth sheathed her knife. She said to Noah as the sun got dim behind a cloud, “How are you doin?”

“Tired,” said Noah. “Thirsty.”

“Me, too.”

“Hope Daryl gets back soon.”

He smiled again, sadly. Then he drifted away.

It was like they were crossing a long desert. It was like the days would never end.

Beth kept her eyes on the trees. She wasn’t looking for walkers. She was looking for Daryl. He had not asked her along. He worked faster alone, and she understood. But without him, it was like she was always tugging an imaginary sweater around her shoulders. She wanted to disappear. She was scared that he would die. 

“You’re worried,” said Father Gabriel then. He was sweating, had come to walk beside her. He shook his head, like he felt silly. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should formally introduce myself, before I pretend to read your mind. I’m Father Gabriel. Gabriel Stokes.”

He held out his hand, and she shook it. “I’m Beth Greene.”

“It’s a pleasure to actually meet you, Beth Greene.”

“You said you think I’m worried,” she said. “Why would you say that?”

He unbuttoned his sleeves, rolled them up past his forearms. He took a deep breath. He looked up at the sky. “You keep glancing to the tree line. Constantly. Daryl’s out there, isn’t he?”

“He’s scouting for water.”

“I see things,” he said. “We all do. Daryl does a lot for this group. He’s depended upon. As are you, of course. You make a good couple.”

“What do you mean?”

“You look after Judith, more than anyone, even Rick,” he said. “Having a baby along, in a world like this, where walkers just pop up out of nowhere, that’s not easy. Babies cry, they need to eat frequently, they get fussy for no obvious reason. You keep her safe, and calm. I haven’t been with you all that long, but it’s been long enough. I can tell. When you returned to us, when you came to church that night, the mood had been very hostile. There was a lot of conflict. Bob disappeared, then Carol. Nobody knew what to think, or to do. But then Daryl appeared, and you. You, Beth, are very important to Rick.”

She was flattered, but she didn’t want to be. Once again, it’s just what it was. “We all got jobs to do.”

“And Daryl’s doing his, right?” said Father Gabriel. “His job is scary. But he’s good at what he does. That’s why he’s out there, and nobody else. And it’s at least part of why you love him, I imagine.”

The sky was getting dark now. The clouds were big, like anvils. It would rain soon. “Yes,” she said.

Father Gabriel smiled in his blissful confusion, and how his greater sense of self-awareness and connection to the world of sin made his life seem blurry, and complicated in the new world. “Now,” he said. “If only I could figure out my job. My place. Then, perhaps I could give you some real advice. Alas, I’m between purposes at the moment.”

Beth had heard his story, from Maggie. About his congregation, their deaths, and the locked doors. Beth didn’t judge him. How could she judge anybody like that? That was a different time. That’s what she had said to Maggie. Beth only cared about who people were, and what they did right now, not who they had used to be. She said, “You’re doin your job just fine, Father Gabriel. Thank you.”

Dumbfounded, he smiled and walked away.

“Hey,” said Michonne. She was walking by now, a little hesitant.

“Hey.”

Michonne had a softness about her. She spoke little, or, she only spoke when she had something to say. She was easy to smile, and easy to be around. “I just wanted to say thanks, for humoring Carl.”

“What?” said Beth. “You mean like, with the music box?”

“Yeah.” She smiled to herself, like she was remembering back, the good times. “When he found that thing, immediately, he thought of you. I think he likes you.”

“It’s sweet,” said Beth. “I love it, actually.”

She showed it to Michonne, who held it up to her ear. “Broken?”

Beth shrugged, zipped it away into her back-pack.

“Well, maybe Daryl can fix it,” she said. She nudged Beth with her shoulder. “Or Eugene, assuming he’s not permanently concussed.”

Beth felt warm in her chest. “My daddy knew how to fix things like this,” she said. “He fixed cars, and clocks. When I was little, he would fix clocks for people around town. Wouldn’t charge them anything, just did it because he could. I would sit, and watch him fixing the clocks, and anytime he would drop a little cog or something, I would go hunting for it, and find it in the carpet.”

“That sounds so cool,” said Michonne. “He was really something.”

“I miss him,” said Beth.

Michonne squeezed her, once. She had been closer than anyone in the end, when it all went down.

That’s when it started to rain. Slow, fat droplets at first, then faster, then it was a downpour.

3.

Daryl had found a barn, about a quarter mile off the road. When he returned, it had been just in time. The storm hit hard, like a hammer. They made a run for it. Inside, it looked like some people had been living there, for a while. One remained, hissing in one of the stalls with a gun, a machete, and a calendar. Maggie took care of it. They started a fire, but it was so wet, they couldn’t grow it. It stayed small. Carl passed out, Judith curled right into him. Rick took the hat off his head, gave it to Beth for safe-keeping.

Abraham had a pint of rye whiskey, in a glass bottle that he had found back at the convenience store. He sat down with it, and Sasha sat down next to him. Beth watched. Rosita was by the fire, sharpening her knife, staring at the flames like they owed her something. Eugene was nodding off,Tara beside him, then Noah, who was looking down at that machete. Tara passed him some water. He drank. He was bent, but he was not broken. Glenn and Maggie leaned against one another. Father Gabriel did not remove his collar. Tyreese was asleep, sitting almost upright. Daryl was so tired, Beth swore you could see his bones, diminishing, beneath his skin. He had his arm around her, his head tilted back against the cold wood, and his eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping.

Michonne was next to Rick, stoking the fire with a long stick.

Rick gave a speech. He talked about Carl. And Judith. He talked about growing up, and how once, he had felt sorry for them, having to live in this world. But then he realized that growing up isn't just one thing. It's “getting used to the world.”

“This isn’t the world,” said Michonne. She was scraping a whetstone against her sword. It was such a strange thing to say, but she didn’t seem to care what anybody thought.

“It might be,” said Glenn.

“It isn’t.”

"I just mean—"

“Michonne's right,” said Beth. She felt it. Michonne looked up at her, like she was surprised to hear her voice. Everybody looked at her. Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Daryl. She tried not to get embarrassed. “I just mean—you're right, too, Rick. And Glenn. You are. But this _isn't_ the world. Not yet. We can make the world into whatever we want. Whatever we want it to be. Maybe this is it for today. Maybe it is just barns and drought. But we can’t live like that’s all there is. We have to look forward. We have to. And Carl and Judith, they’ll be there with us. We gotta do it for them. They’ll have to learn that, too.” She looked at Rick, right at him. “We ain't dead," she said. "We ain't them things outside. We're us."

Daryl was shredding a leaf, in his fingers, sitting right beside her. He studied her, hard. He said, “That's right."

Rick tossed a twig into the fire, becoming serious. “That’s why we need you, Beth. You're always keeping things in perspective. Thank you.”

“I just call it like I see it,” she said.

"Always have," said Maggie, smiling.

That night, a tornado ripped through the valley. It put down multiple trees, and a lightning strike started a fire nearby, which started drawing walkers from the woods.

Beth was the first to notice. Judith had been crying, so she was up with her, walking around the barn, singing as soft as she could. When she got up front to the big barn doors, and most everybody else was sleeping but Daryl, she saw through the cracks in the planks what was coming, lit up by the erratic lightning of the midnight sky.

Daryl hastened as soon as he heard, threw his whole body into the door, holding it closed against the dead, and the wind, and the rain. Beth woke Rick, who woke everybody else. They all helped. Beth held Judith, and she stood beside the fire with Carl, watching as the wind came down through the valley and threatened to tip the whole thing over, throwing walkers against the windows, and they were pushing through the doors with the gusts. The sound of the storm was like a freight train. It was terrifying. At one point, Beth and Carl had to hold onto each other and hit the floor, as a bunch of rafters and slats came crashing down from the roof. Judith wailed and Beth sang in her ear, an old song she remembered her mom singing when she was a young teenager. _They made a statue of us, and they put it on a mountaintop. Now tourists come and stare at us, blow bubbles with their gum, take photographs, have fun. Have fun._

When it finally ended, the walkers had been sucked back by the cyclone, tossed like rag dolls and old sacks of corn. If they weren’t obliterated completely, they were stuck in treetops or impaled against old farm equipment and downed branches and rendered completely inert by the storm. By dawn, nobody spoke. Most of them crashed hard against the floor while Rick sat alone in a chair, facing the barn doors with his hatchet and loaded shotgun in his lap. He didn’t move, barely blinked, for hours. That was his job.

Meanwhile, Beth leaned against Daryl, baby Judith sleeping hard in her arms. Daryl had cut his hand on the barn door and she had cleaned it for him with some of the rubbing alcohol from back in Jetersville and now he was wrapping it in a piece of gauze, binding it with electrical tape. When he finished, he looked at baby Judith and tenderly touched his thumb to her cheek. She had him locked down tight. Beth, too. They didn’t know how he truly felt because the way that Daryl truly felt, nobody could ever really understand. It was sacred and cryptic and lived deep inside him, like the Great Pyramids and all of their ancient secrets.

“I ain’t gonna lie when I say I am ready to get right outta this barn,” said Beth. She smiled at him, feeling like a ghost, like skin and bones. “Find some place with real walls.”

“We will,” said Daryl. He examined his hand then shook it out and proceeded to forget all about it. “Imma get us outta this—this purgatory, or whatever. I promise. Goddam sick of it myself.”

“Daryl.” She had her head set back against the wooden slats on the wall. She looked at him, weary and beautiful with Judith’s face snug against the curve of her neck. “I wanna tell you somethin."

“Okay.”

“I love you,” she said. In a simple way. She shrugged once, took a deep breath and exhaled. It had taken courage, but now that it was done, she knew it was right. “I don’t wanna hold it back no more. After Richmond, after everything. I just, I've seen both sides of this, of us. You and me. And maybe it's fast, but I don't care. I don't wanna wait, Daryl. I wanna live. I just wanna love you, and be good.”

Somewhere on the other side of the barn, laughter broke out. It was quiet and unrelated to them or to anyone or anything else but its own intent. It was Sasha. Abraham had made a joke, or something stupid like that. And she laughed. Nobody could remember the last time Sasha laughed.

Daryl had frozen, was very still. He was looking down at Beth’s knuckles and how they were fine-boned, and that gray t-shirt she was wearing, the same one she'd been wearing since she'd picked it up at the Target in Atlanta. It had all happened. It had. It wasn't imagined, or a dream. He didn’t feel afraid of what he felt, even as it was so big, he knew it could crush him. But he was undone. She had picked him apart, piece by piece, cleaned his insides, made him feel pure, then put him back together again. He loved her more than he had ever loved anything. 

“I love you, too,” he said, looking at her. It was not so much a revelation as it was a reveal. The truth was easy. As was usual with Daryl, he just needed a push.  
  
“Really?” she said, like she was relieved.

"Of course," he said. "You think I'd lie about that? I ain't ever loved nothin, Beth. Nothin. Not till now. That I know." He picked up her hand, kissed her knuckles, then he kissed her. She melted against him. She was like butter.

She just wanted to stay there, with him, a little longer. Him and baby Judith, just sleeping through the whole thing like it was nothing. Because she felt safe. And Beth felt safe. Safer than she had since the farm.

Meanwhile, in some ways, Daryl was ruined. He knew he was. He wasn't stupid. But she had cracked him wide open, all the way back to that night at the shine shack, and there was no going back from that. Burning it down with Beth. He was not the sort of man to hide from what he wanted. It's just that up until now, he had never really wanted anything this bad.

Later on, while everybody was packing up their shit and getting ready for the next adventure, Beth went out to the hill behind the barn and sat on a fallen tree with Sasha and Maggie. Sasha had been out there all alone, with her rifle, keeping watch, making sure there were no more surprises, and Maggie followed, and then Beth followed her. They all sat together now, looking at the golden sun shining on the green hills. Beth had the music box, and Sasha asked if she could hold it. When Beth handed it to her, Sasha opened it up and turned the crank. It played its little song.

“It works,” said Maggie.

“Daryl fixed it,” said Beth.

They all smiled in delight, watched the little ballerina turn.

But then, a man came out of the woods. He was tall, and clean-cut, had his hands in the air, looked happy to see them. “Hey,” he said. “Hi.”

His voice was deep, pleasant. He seemed innocent. But all three of them were on their feet with their guns in an instant. 

He seemed taken by surprise. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. My name is Aaron.” But then he resigned, even became self-deprecating. “I know,” he said. “Stranger danger, right? But I’m a friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small portions of dialogue in this chapter have been adapted from episode 5.9, "What Happened and What's Going On," as well as episode 5.10, "Them." There are lots of references in this chapter, big and small, to both episodes.
> 
> The song Beth sings to Judith in the barn is
> 
> "Us" by Regina Spektor ([youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fczPlmz-Vug) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/6zJms3MX11Qu1IKF44LoRW?si=VgYZf24uS5eBbs4HxADPkg))


	11. The Reason

Beth stood in a big, white living room with Aaron, staring up at a large, wooden ceiling fan. It was perfectly still. He had walked her over to a house just two down the line from his own, gave her two keys and said, “Here you go. This is for you, and Daryl.”

“We get a whole house?” she said.

He smiled, looked around, quite pleased with himself. “I figured you would, you know, wanna be together.”

The house was big and immaculate. It was decorated in this sort of modern style that Beth had used to see a lot while watching _Property Brothers_ on HGTV. All sharp angles and whites and grays and neutral woods with the subway tile backsplash in the kitchen. She would have preferred more character during any other time in her life before now, but as it was, the shock of standing inside an actual house that she had just been gifted by a complete stranger somewhere in Virginia proper was enough to make her forget all about the fact that she had once used to have taste. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” said Aaron. “There should be towels and fresh linens in the hallway closet on the second floor, and there’s no food, but Jesse should be by with rations from the pantry later today. If you’re hungry now, I can take you over there.”

“No,” said Beth. “No, that’s all right.”

“Okay,” said Aaron, smiling. He then glanced at his watch. “Now, I think Daryl should be done with his interview soon.”

“Okay.”

“I can walk you back there, if you’d like. Or I can just head back alone, pick up Daryl while you stay here, get settled. I can bring him right back, show him around the place. Easy-peasy.”

“Lemon squeezy,” said Beth.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nevermind.”

The thought of Daryl being shown around this gigantic, fancy house by babyface Aaron the good ol’ boy with the very clean fingernails made her visibly wince.

“Are you okay?” said Aaron.

“I’m fine,” she said. She pulled her shit together, straightened up and smoothed her ponytail. “Thank you, Aaron. This is…great. Why don’t you go get Daryl. I’ll wait here.”

“Perfect,” he said.

**Interview:** Daryl Dixon

 **Transcribed:** [09/30/2012, 12:45pm]

_**Deanna:** Daryl, right?_

_**Daryl:** [sitting on the couch, chewing his thumb nail] Yeah, that’s right._

_**Deanna:** Do you mind if I ask for you to confirm your last name? Just for the record._

_**Daryl:** Dixon._

_**Deanna:** Daryl Dixon. [writes it down] Okay, Mr. Dixon. Do you want to be here?_

_**Daryl:** [looks up suddenly] What?_

_**Deanna:** I said, do you want to be here?_

_**Daryl:** [hesitates] Yeah. I do. I mean, I think._

_**Deanna:** Why?_

_**Daryl:** I don’t know. [looks around, suspiciously] I mean, some version of me is runnin for the hills. Parts of this place give me the creeps. I ain’t never been—anyway._

_**Deanna:** What’s the part that makes you want to stay?_

_**Daryl:** Judith, Carl. Kids deserve a roof. _

_**Deanna:** Is that all?_

_**Daryl:** Rick’s my best friend. Been with him since the beginning. I was there the day Judith was born. That ain’t enough?_

_**Deanna:** Of course it is. I was just wondering._

_**Daryl:** [stares]_

_**Deanna:** What about Beth?_

_**Daryl:** [stares]_

_**Deanna:** You were mentioned, during our interview._

_**Daryl:** [looks down at his hands] You wanna talk about Beth?_

_**Deanna:** Well, I’m trying to get to know you, and when I mentioned her name just now, you finally looked at me like you were really here. So I’m capitalizing on that. I promise, I have no ulterior motives, Daryl. I know it may take a lot, for you to trust people. I am not asking you to trust me. I’m just asking you to give me a chance to prove myself worthy of your trust._

_**Daryl:** [looks down at his shoes] _

_**Deanna:** Do you think you could belong here with Beth?_

_**Daryl:** I mean, yeah. With her, I could belong anywhere. I think. I mean, I can try._

_**Deanna:** [smiles] _

_**Daryl:** Y’all gotta keep your gates closed though. You gotta post people on the damn wall. This ain’t the fuckin suburbs. It's a damn hellscape._

_**Deanna:** So I hear._

“Beth?”

Daryl was standing in the middle of a very big, very white living room. The walls were huge. They were just walls, but they seemed like they were trying to be something else. He went right up, knocked on them. There was a clock in the kitchen, but it wasn’t ticking. He took it off the wall, flipped it around, tapped its little core. Then he set it on the counter. It was probably just the battery. Aaron had walked him through the door, started talking, but then got called away immediately by a nice girl named Tonya. There was some sort of situation with Eric. He needed help, or something. Daryl didn’t really catch it all.

“Beth?” he said again.

There was still no answer. He felt sort of nervous. He went to the bottom of the stairs. They were carpeted, a soft gray. He placed his hand on the railing, looked up. There were empty picture frames on the walls. Beth’s purple backpack was on the bottom step, unzipped, neatly. He picked it up, put it over his shoulder, then he put up his crossbow, just in case. The house was so clean. It smelled like chemicals, and apples. He wondered who had cleaned it, or if it had ever been lived in at all?

“Beth?”

There were four rooms upstairs. One was outfitted like an office with a heavy, black desk and empty bookshelves, and a globe. The others were all bedrooms. Their doors were open. They were decorated in a rote, rich, and modern fashion that unnerved Daryl. The furnishings were simple, but glossy, distant, like he was walking through one of those magazines you'd see in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

He found Beth, eventually, asleep in the room at the end of the hall.

He let his guard down, sort of, lowered his bow. She was just taking a nap, on the bed, on top of all the fluffy, white covers with her knees pulled up. Her hair was all messy, like a big golden nest on the pillow. Looking around, scanning the corners, checking the closet, he didn't like this, Beth asleep, alone, in a big, empty house, somewhere strange and new, without him, without Rick, without anybody nearby. 

The room was big and it had high ceilings. The blue curtains on the window had been pulled back, and the room was filled with immaculate light. There was a white dresser and a vanity mirror, and in the dresser there were all of these etchings, like paisley or something similarly French. Fleur-de-lis. That's what it was called. He saw Beth’s things, spread out there, on the dresser. A bottle of hand lotion she’d picked up at the house in the grove, a hoodie folded neatly, a cliff bar, a couple of rags, half a book of matches, a tube of strawberry chapstick. 

Daryl set her backpack down, then he sat down in the chair next to the dresser, listening to the sounds outside, birds and bugs and people. He watched Beth for a little while, just sat there, thinking. He was thinking about the prison. He was thinking about the Governor. He was thinking about Grady. 

Soon, he gave up. He went and sat down on the bed, remembering how she had told him it was okay. He tucked the hair behind her ear, smoothed it off her face. She did not stir. He felt suddenly overcome with an intense possession, an overwhelming sense of belonging. It was enough to disturb the very atoms of his soul and soften him, just for a minute, quiet down his brain, make him remember. Remember how she'd told him she loved him, and that should have been enough.

He took off his shoes. He leaned against the headboard. He held a white pillow to his chest. He left one hand to graze hers. Then, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

**Interview:** Bethany Greene

 **Transcribed:** [9/30/2012, 12:02pm]

_**Beth:** You should keep your gates closed, you know. All the time. It ain’t safe keeping them open like that._

_**Deanna:** [smiles] That’s what Rick said._

_**Beth:** You should listen to Rick. He knows what to do._

_**Deanna:** Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Beth? I just want to try and get to know you. This won’t take long. I’m just curious about who I’m dealing with here._

_**Beth:** Sure._

_**Deanna:** [addresses notes] What did you do, before?_

_**Beth:** Before?_

_**Deanna:** Yes, before. _

_**Beth:** I’m nineteen. I was in school._

_**Deanna:** Nineteen. That’s just the beginning._

_**Beth:** Sometimes._

_**Deanna:** What did you want to do? Before all of this? Did you have goals, dreams?_

_**Beth:** No. [shrugs] I mean, I thought about, I don’t know. Being a mom? But that’s not really much of a dream._

_**Deanna:** Isn’t it?_

_**Beth:** I was applying to colleges, but I didn’t really care about that._

_**Deanna:** Why not?_

_**Beth:** I can’t even remember anymore. I mean, I think I just thought…I would do whatever came next. My sister was in college, so I would go, too. My grades were fine. But I didn’t care._

_**Deanna:** You’re Maggie’s younger sister, correct?_

_**Beth:** Yes._

_**Deanna:** Maggie mentioned your father, that he died not long ago. I’m very sorry._

_**Beth:** Thank you. He was a good man. [crosses her arms, looks away]_

_**Deanna:** You seem suspicious of me._

_**Beth:** I don’t know what you expected. _

_**Deanna:** Neither do I._

_**Beth:** I want this to work. I do. But a lot of us ain’t so sure. For some of us, walls don’t define a place. Or they don’t mean anything. Or they're a trap._

_**Deanna:** Rick mentioned a prison? So did Maggie._

_**Beth:** Yeah. Back in Georgia. It was the closest thing we had to a home after we lost our farm._

_**Deanna:** You seem very important to Rick. He mentioned you to me. That you help with Judith, that you have been her main caretaker from the time of her birth, and that you’re a friend to Carl._

_**Beth:** We all got jobs to do. Mine's Judith, and Carl needed a friend._

_**Deanna:** Why did you do it?_

_**Beth:** Because it needed to be done. Rick lost his wife, and Carl lost his mother. Their family was torn apart, and I know what that’s like._

_**Deanna:** I see. [addresses notes] You said you wanted to be a mother, before. Is that also a part of why you took the job?_

_**Beth:** [shrugs] Maybe. I mean, it weren’t conscious, like that. Rick needed help, and I could._

_**Deanna:** That’s very admirable, Beth. Especially for such a young woman._

_**Beth:** Thanks. But age ain’t got nothing to do with it._

_**Deanna:** When you arrived here, I noticed that you were with Daryl. That’s his name, correct?_

_**Beth:** Yes._

_**Deanna:** I noticed that you were holding hands. The two of you are together?_

_**Beth:** Yes._

_**Deanna:** [smiles] How long has it been?_

_**Beth:** Not long. But we were friends before. _

_**Deanna:** Do you see a future with him?_

_**Beth:** Why do you care?_

_**Deanna:** Young couples bring hope for the future. We are trying to build a future. You don’t have to answer, Beth. It is, of course, none of my business. I’m just curious._

_**Beth:** [stares] Yes. I see a future with him._

_**Deanna:** Wonderful._

_**Beth:** I know you’ll try to talk to him, like this._

_**Deanna:** Indeed, I will._

_**Beth:** It’s gonna be hard, you know. Daryl is a good man, but he ain’t easy to crack. You need to give him time. I did, and somehow I got him to notice me. I was just some stupid girl, too naïve for her own good, and I somehow got his attention. Now, I'm better. If you want this place to work, you are gonna need Rick Grimes, but you’re also gonna need Daryl Dixon. Trust me. He’s the most loyal man you’ll ever know, but first you gotta get him on your side. You gotta convince him that you mean it, that you'll never let him down. _

_**Deanna:** [smiles] Thank you, Beth._

_**Beth:** You’re welcome._

Beth dreamed of Daryl that day, that she had been in a big city, and it was before, and they were at a big, fancy hotel, and Daryl was up on a balcony with Rick and Glenn. They were all clean and pampered, smoking cigarettes, and she was down below talking to some girls that were mostly faceless in her memory. When she looked up at him, Daryl waved. He called down to her, _I’m gonna go home._

She said, _I’ll meet you there._

But then time went by so fast, and she was in that hotel, but she was alone. She had a subway map, and she was trying to figure out how to get back home. But the hotel was in the middle of a big, dark place, and to get anywhere, she knew she would have to walk through a lot of alleys, and down scary streets, by herself. In the dream, she was cold, and she decided it would be best to just check into the hotel and she would go home in the morning. She knew Daryl would worry. She didn’t know where home was.

She woke up with a start. She was lying in the big, white bed, in the big, white house in Alexandria. She had just closed her eyes for a second. Now the sun was getting low in the sky, and Daryl was there, asleep beside her. It was a surprise, to see him. She took his hand, because he was so vulnerable like that. He had taken off his shoes, but he hadn’t laid flat on his back, and this seemed like such a Daryl thing to do. It was hard for him to concede to comfort. He liked to think he didn’t need it. But he did.

She squeezed his hand, feeling like she might explode. He was this big warm animal in her bed. He was in love with her, and she didn’t know why. Delicately, she tucked the hair off his face.

Daryl opened his eyes, slowly reacquainting with the dying light coming through the window, and the big, white room, and reality, and her, so real, like a piece of fruit. He had not been dreaming. He had been floating in an empty sea. Waking up felt like surfacing from another time. He touched her ear, and she was smiling at him with such tenderness, and so he kissed her, right away. It's what he wanted. He wanted to wake up and kiss her, and so he did. His eyes closed, it had been ten thousand years. His heart was pumping blood into his veins, all of it in ways he had forgotten existed. He was reminded, if even briefly, that his body was alive.

She tasted like that strawberry chapstick, and she moved fast. He let her, for a little while. She was on top of him, with her legs pressing against his hips on both sides, holding him down. As she pushed her hands against his skin, underneath his shirt, her warm touch on his bare chest started putting him past. They had never been this alone. Like a flash of white light, he felt himself losing control. 

It was too fast. He took hold of her shoulders, held them both still, and tried to catch his breath. It was like putting the breaks on a freight train, going down a mountain. He said, “Beth, hang on.”

He knew he’d started it, had kissed her, the way he did. He hadn’t known what would take place. It was like dipping his hand into a well of dark water. She dragged her head up and she looked at him in a haze. She straightened, her hands in her lap now, resting innocently on his stomach, just above his belt buckle.

Daryl sucked in a deep breath with his eyes closed. He then took some pieces of her curly hair and put them all back behind her ears and then he pushed all of it back so he could see her whole pretty face. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Beth. She seemed confused. “You don’t gotta hold back from me, Daryl. We been through so much together.”

“I ain’t holdin back,” he said. 

“Are you scared?”

“Yes."

She was very still. She stayed there, on top of him, but the mood had shifted. Her hands were pressed in the folds of his shirt. "Is it because you think I'm a virgin?"

Daryl stopped, cold. He just stared at her. Everything about Beth was so frank and right there on the surface. “What?” 

“You’d be right,” she said. “I am. I mean, it's not like I'm a total Mary, but...does that weird you out?"

"No," he said. In all honesty, he had guessed as much. He hadn't known for sure. “Beth, no. Of course it don't."

"Because I'm ready," she said. "Maybe that seems stupid to say out loud, but I have to say it. I need you to know, because I know you need to know. Daryl, I want this." 

"Why?" he said.

"Why?" she said. "What do you mean why?"

"I just mean, why?" 

Beth stayed very still. She thought about getting off of him, but she didn't. She stayed. She was surprised. "I thought we been through this."

He said nothing.

"I love you. I'm in love with you."

"Yeah, I love you, too," he said. "But bein in love with you, that makes sense. Why do you love me?"

"We burned down that stupid fucking shine shack, Daryl," she said. "I thought we was burnin down more than walls that night. Are you kiddin me?"

"We were," he said. "We were burnin down more than walls. And I know we been through it, but we haven't like this. Not alone, not really. Beth, I just—I was so confused, after that night, about my feelings. But I let um in. I let you in. Then I thought I lost you. I lost you, and then I found you again, at Grady. Then it was like livin in a dream, with Noah and the grove. And then we found Rick. And now we're here?" He looked around, like he was lost. She just listened. "We're in this, this house? This fuckin suburban neighborhood in the middle of a damn nightmare? Bein interviewed by some damn politician, like some damn reality TV show? And now we're alone, for the first time. Really alone. You and me. And I want you so bad, I feel like I'm losin my mind. Back in the barn when you told me you loved me, I heard that. I did. But I didn't know. I just can't figure it out."

"You're a good man. You protect, and you give, and you give. I ain't the only one among us who loves you." She wasn't mad. She just wanted him to see. She took a deep breath. She said, "If it makes you feel any better, I feel the same stupid way about you, Daryl Dixon, it's just that I don't show it."

"What?"

"You're Rick's first lieutenant. You're like a general. People look up to you. They depend on you. You always come through for us. I know you still think you're just fuckin trailer trash and whatever, but even if you ever was, that was before. Before is dead, Daryl. Now, you're a hero. I'm just the babysitter. "

"Are you kidding me? Beth. You ain't just the babysitter."

"Everybody tells me that, I know," she said. "Daryl, I had a thing for you all the way back to the prison. Did you know that?"

"No. Wait, what?"

"I was eighteen by then, but I figured you probably just saw me as like, jailbait."

"What about Zach?"

"Zach was a good person," she said. "He was good to me, and he tried really hard. He liked me more than I liked him. I hope he didn't know that. I hope he didn't."

"Beth."

She didn’t know she could make him lose his mind. He didn't know how he could do the same thing to her. "You're just gonna have to let me love you," she said. "Okay? I know you. You're in this house, and you ain't comfortable. You don't like it. You're suspicious and anxious, and you know what? I am, too. It's not like I just walked right into this place and somethin popped in my brain like, _Welcome home!_ No, Daryl. I felt more at home in the prison. But I remember, when we first got there, I hated it. I hated it so much. It was creepy and sad, and there were walkers everywhere, but we gave it time. We all gave it a real chance, and we worked for it, and we made it a home. I think we can do that here, too. Don't you?"

He said nothing. He just watched her, intensely.

"You ain’t used to taking," Beth went on. "All you do is give. You give me so much. But I wanna give, too. I have a lot to give, and I wanna give it all, and I wanna give it to you. Because life is fucked up, and it's short, and here we are, in a new place, starting all over again. I wanna start over with you. I wanna be loyal to you, and I want us to be together, because it’s right. Daryl, it is.”

Her outpouring, it was like being punched in the gut, continuously. It's not just that it was earnest, and fast. Something about it was almost funny. Like she was trying to amuse him. She made him see the stupid side of things. Like realism. Like being loved was normal, it was sane. It was the typical thing to do. She was still sitting there in his lap. While she had been talking, he'd felt his hands over her knees, palming her thighs, because that's just what he did. They were already together. They were already there.

He looked back out the window, for just a minute. It was a pink sundown, like cotton candy in the sky. "I ain't never been with a girl I loved," he said. The truth hurt. "It would just be bodies. We'd be drunk. Then they'd fuckin leave. Or I'd leave. There was no beauty in it. Nothin pure."

"I ain't gonna leave."

"I know," said Daryl. "I know. Beth, I'm just—what this is, where it's goin, I need to do right by you."

"You do," said Beth. "Every day, you do right by me."

“If I don’t," he went on, "if I fuck this up, I’m scared your dad’s gonna float down from heaven, break both my fuckin knee caps, feed me to the hogs.”

Beth laughed. He thought he saw tears in her eyes. She shoved him in the shoulder and said, “You’re so weird.”

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

They waited. They studied each other, like they were easing back into it. She kissed him once, soft and full of warmth, her hands fixed right on his belt buckle.

His face lingered close to hers. He could still taste her, like strawberries. He had his eyes closed. "I just needed to know the reason."

"I know."

There was a loud knocking then, on the front door, down the stairs. It was firm and full of authority. It scared the shit out of them. They both jumped to their feet like there was some sort of air raid.

“WHO IS IT.” Daryl was loud and he did not sound nice.

“It’s Rick.”

“Shit,” said Beth. They’d forgotten where they were and what was going on. She sat back down on the bed, put her face in her hands. 

“Fuckin cops,” said Daryl. "Why they gotta knock like that?"

He was actually serious. Beth laughed anyway. Daryl picked up her backpack off the floor, handed it to her so she could pack up her stuff for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. ❤️ -gala


	12. Try

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cw: specific mentions of past child abuse_

_“We are, all of us, quietly lingering in a liminal space. Nothing is provable in its truth beyond that which lies in the confines of our human perception. We can put our faith in god, in science, but neither will deliver us from the conundrum that is reality. What you see, it isn’t what I see, though we may meet in various symbolic moments of living along the way, experiences that unite us beyond the boundaries of life and death. Fleeting as they are, these are the moments that define us, the truth of this life, and how to make choices. These rare moments in which my perception intersects perfectly with yours, it is like a beam of light, clarity. This manifests as what we may describe as ‘bonding,’ love, whether it be romantic or platonic. In end times, allied men and women who’ve never met find one another on the battlefield, and in escaping together with their lives, through strife and sacrifice, are never the same. What I mean to say is, when our souls truly meet in this life, no matter how briefly, they cannot unmeet.” – Father Gabriel Stokes_

1.

For five days, they slept at Rick’s house. It was about solidarity, and reconnaissance, and normalcy. What was normal to them, that wasn’t really normal. Right? Daryl and Beth crashed in the downstairs hallway, under a cheap wool blanket with a Baltimore Ravens decal. They spent their days walking around, looking at the people, and meeting them awkwardly on the sidewalk. Daryl went out for a hunt on his own one morning, took down a deer, cleaned and bled it in the woods, then dragged it in on a palette he’d found at a nearby gas station. In doing this, he totally freaked out one of the locals, named Nicholas, who was supposed to be keeping watch on the wall. He hadn’t seen Daryl leave, and accused him of “sneaking out on purpose.”

“What are you, the hall monitor?” said Daryl.

“You need to check in and out, with one of us,” said Nicholas. He had curly hair and kind of a slack-jawed look, like he was perpetually confused. He caried a rifle, which Daryl was more than certain he knew neither how to use nor clean properly.

Daryl didn’t want to stir the pot. He was trying to be good, to _try._ It’s what Beth wanted, and ultimately, what he wanted, too. “I let the lady at the armory know what I was doin,” said Daryl, crossbow over his shoulder. “Ain’t my fault you didn’t see me leave. You should worry more about these damn walls, less about guys like me. I took out five walkers on my way in today, defending this damn carcass. How many you get with that rifle?”

Nicholas said nothing. He just looked down at his dusty boots, like he was embarrassed.

“That’s what I thought.”

That night, they sat with Eugene and Noah at Rick’s house, playing Spades at the coffee table while Jesse and some of the other women prepared a big venison stew in the kitchen. They all ate together. It was very good, and a warm, right evening. Jesse had stayed, too, with her sunny disposition, and her son Samuel, and a little bit later, Enid came by, and she ate a little bit, tucked away in the back of the kitchen by herself most of the time. Carl went and sat next to her, at one point, while holding Judith, and though the two did not really talk, Beth saw Enid smile while she poked Judith’s fat little cheek. Everybody was really thankful for what Daryl had done, especially Deanna. It was okay. 

On the fourth night, on the floor at Rick’s, they couldn’t sleep, and so Beth asked Daryl what kind of music he liked, or had used to like, when there was music.

“Everybody likes music,” said Beth. “What did you like?”

Daryl was holding both of her hands in his. They were lying on their sides, facing one another in the dim light of the candles from the living room, listening to Abraham snoring from the other side of the wall. “I saw Patty Griffin once, live, in a little theater in Savannah. I was a bar back, like sixteen. I snuck in. You know Patty Griffin?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Beth.

“She sang this one song, really made me feel things. Called something like, _Not Alone._ ”

“I had that album,” said Beth. "On vinyl. I used to play all kinds of Patty Griffin on the guitar, when I first learning. I think I know that song."

“You do?”

They lay for a while, trying to keep their eyes closed. But Daryl couldn’t help himself. “You should sing it. Not now. Some other time. But you should.”

She kissed him. He was so gentle with her, and so quiet, she just wanted to make him feel good. She wanted to make him feel good, so bad. Everybody else was sleeping, and where they were hidden in that hallway, it was private enough. She stuck her hand down the front of his pants. At first, he grabbed her wrist in shock, and so she stopped, but then he loosened his grip, breathed into her ear, and nodded okay. He was not fully hard when she took hold of him, but he grew hard in what seemed like an instant. She unbuttoned his fly and pressed her body close to his, finished him against her bare stomach. It was warm and sticky. He went so fast, she could have counted the seconds. His breathing labored but quiet. He grabbed onto her then, for dear life, held her so close, like he would never let her go. They slept soundly as rocks after that and did not open their eyes again until morning, when the light was coming through the window and the birds were singing outside.

Daryl felt a shoe in his side, nudging. He flung up, ready for death. But it was just Rick. Daryl looked around at his blurred surroundings like he was coming to from a thousand-year nap in the ether.

“Where’s Beth?” he said.

“She’s in the bathroom,” said Rick. “You feelin okay?”

Daryl shoved his fist into his eye. “Yeah. What time is it?”

“Almost ten,” said Rick.

“Shit. I ain't slept that late in years.”

Rick got down on the floor, leaned against the wall. Daryl pushed up and sat beside him, groggy, but rested, still thinking about the night before.

“There’s a group goin out today,” said Rick. “On a supply run.”

“What group.”

“Glenn, Tyreese, Tara, and Noah. They’re goin with a couple of guys from the town.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” said Rick. “Glenn seems to think it’s necessary.”

“Why Noah.”

“He volunteered.”

“He ain’t ready for that,” said Daryl. “He’s too green.”

“Kid wants to cut his teeth out on a run, I ain’t tryin to stop him.”

“I will,” said Daryl. “Send Rosita instead. She knows what she’s doin. Noah can cut his teeth next time. I'll go with him.”

Rick sighed. He had trimmed his beard down the day before, was studying his hands, which looked like weathered old catcher’s mitts. “You do what you have to. But either way, I want you here today, help me figure some things out.”

“What’s goin on.”

“Nothin,” said Rick. He got up off the floor, held out a hand to help Daryl do the same. Together they stood, dusting their jeans off, looking around the hallway, to the sunfilled room at the other end. “I just—I’m havin a hard time seeing clearly in this place.”

“What part?”

“These people. They’re weak. I’m tryin to figure out how to help them, but getting down on their level, that ain’t an option.”

“Just do what you do,” said Daryl.

“What do you mean?”

“You done it before,” said Daryl. “You did it at the quarry. Then after the farm. And when all them Woodbury people came to the prison, you did it then, too.”

“That was my turf though,” said Rick. “This ain’t.”

“Wasn’t at the quarry,” said Daryl. “That was Shane’s turf. You came in, you changed things for the better.”

“Shane was—he knew what was what. I knew him from before, how to deal with him. Deanna, though. She’s a stranger.”

“Let Maggie deal with Deanna,” said Daryl. “And Beth. They put a pretty face on all this. You do what you do.”

Rick hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. He nodded, like he understood. “Thanks, Daryl.”

“You’re welcome.”

2.

The next day, Rick and Michonne were given cop’s uniforms. Deanna called them “constables,” like it was some nineteenth century British novel. To Daryl, they looked like a couple of stiffs, but it’s what it was. He trusted Rick to do what was right. Deanna asked Beth to help with community outreach, and planning, but Beth was more interested in the infirmary. She had picked up some skills at Grady, and from her dad, and Daryl knew she wanted to help in some way that was tangible, and that made a difference right now. They struck a deal, and Beth would do both, as much as she could, while taking care of baby Judith most days. She liked keeping busy and felt it was her duty to do so.

Daryl still had not been given a “job.” He didn’t mind. He didn’t mind just being kind of a rote provider. Hunting, foraging, maybe leading the more dangerous supply runs. He could do that with Glenn. They were real good at finding things that weren’t meant to be found, and he could help showing some of these townspeople the ropes, get them ready for a world they didn’t understand yet.

The morning before Deanna’s party, Daryl kissed Beth on the porch while she was bouncing baby Judith, and then he went out into the woods alone again, to see what he could track. He ran into Aaron, scared the shit out of him, and then the two were just sort of in a stand-off, staring at each other awkwardly in the middle of the woods. Aaron was quick to surrender. Daryl was trying. Aaron baffled him. He was a good talker and soft-spoken, looked like he had real soft hands. In the world before, Daryl would’ve driven the getaway car while Merle robbed guys like Aaron. Knock-out gamed them on the street. He didn’t understand what Aaron could be doing out there, alone.

“Did you follow me?” said Daryl.

“No. I came out to hunt rabbits,” said Aaron. “I didn’t know you’d be out here, but I should have figured as much.”

“Why’s that.”

“Compulsive provider?” said Aaron. He smiled. “You seem the type.”

“It’s what I do.”

“I know,” said Aaron. “It’s admirable. It’s what I strive for. To help in any way I can.”

Daryl stared at him, trying to figure him out, find the lie. But Aaron was honest. He was a good guy, easy to talk to. He never made these situations about himself. He truly cared about other people. He was like Beth.

They walked a little while. Aaron asked to tag along, and Daryl let him. He followed Daryl’s lead without question and when they ran into a horse, saddled, grazing in a clearing of tall grasses and sage, he paused, in awe of its beauty, and told Daryl a story of how when he was a little boy, he had used to have a horse of his own, named Wishbone, but it contracted a disease and had to be put down. He said he had been tracking this particular horse for a while.

“Have you ever broken a horse?” said Aaron, handing him the rope.

“No,” said Daryl. The horse was shiny, with a chestnut coat, elegant, and strong. It looked like it had been cared for in its previous life. Daryl wasn’t sure he should do anything. Who was he to decide what would happen next? But the world was ugly and sinister, rotted to its core, and finding the beauty within was becoming harder and harder, every day. That horse was not a wild animal, thought Daryl. It wouldn’t survive out there alone. “I can try.”

Meanwhile, while Carl helped Enid paint some cabinets in the garage, Beth walked Judith in the stroller over to the infirmary. Noah was there, sitting on the front porch, bouncing a tennis ball between his knees. When he saw Beth, he smiled, but he seemed a little down.

"Hey," she said. "How was the supply run yesterday?"

"I wouldn't know," said Noah. "Daryl took me off."

"What?"

"Right at the last minute. Rick sent Rosita instead."

"Daryl took you off?"

"Yeah," said Noah. "Apparently I ain't ready. It all turned out fine, I think. I mean, those Alexandrian guys seem like assholes, but so are most people."

Beth peaked under the canopy. Judith was fast asleep with her little hands clasped on her chest. 

"It's okay," said Noah, sighing sarcastically. "About Daryl. I mean, it's not like it hurt my pride or anything. He's probably right anyway. I wasn't out there that long. Maybe I can help out here instead. For as fucked up as it was, Grady did give me some skills."

Beth sat down next to Noah on the steps. Together they watched Rick and Deanna, standing near the gate, having some sort of serious conversation. Sasha was there, too. They were trying to convince Deanna to post somebody in the lookout tower 24/7. They were on the verge of success, but Deanna was rosy. She did not like to see what was right in front of her, unless it fit her goals. "You know, back at the prison," said Beth, "I had a boyfriend, named Zach."

This was a non sequitur, but it seemed to amuse Noah, still bouncing that tennis ball. He was used to Beth by now, and her weird brain. He knew she would have a point, eventually. "You had a boyfriend that wasn't Daryl? I would have liked to see that."

"He was a really nice guy. He tried really hard, to help, to contribute. He went on a supply run one day. It was just supposed to be a routine thing. But he died."

Noah stopped cold, and the tennis ball went bouncing away into the street. "Shit," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Beth shrugged. "It's okay. Thanks. Anyway, I'm trying to explain something, about Daryl. He blamed himself for Zach. He's lost a lot of people, and I just, I think he's sick of it. You're a good friend, Noah. And you just lost a whole lot, too. He cares about you. He won't risk it if he doesn't have to. I mean, maybe he is being overprotective, but I just wanted to get you to see it like I do."

She looked down at her Converse, beaten and dirty on the concrete steps. 

"He did say we could go out next time, that he'd come with."

"He will."

"Thanks, Beth," said Noah. "You're real cool." 

Samuel walked by then, Jesse's son. He had sad eyes, but when he saw the tennis ball, they lit up like little lanterns. He picked it up. Then he ran away. Beth thought this was absolutely hilarious. "Oops," she said.

"Dammit," said Noah. "I salvaged that thing myself. I got garbage juice on my hands and everything, just for that damn ball."

Beth laughed and patted him on the knee in consolation. "Let him have it. It's good karma."

3.

After getting back from the woods, Daryl went to the white house he was supposed to be sharing with Beth. He was covered in carnage, and he reeked like death, and he was tired, and he just wanted to be alone, just for a little while. They had lost the horse to a herd that took them by surprise and then had to hustle back to beat the dark, killing six or seven walkers on the way in. It was terrible, and sad, and dirty. Daryl undressed, and he put himself into the shower. He just stood under the scalding hot water for ten whole minutes, letting it open his pores, open his sinuses, open his brain. The blood and the dirt ran off his skin and out of his hair, and it circled down the drain, reminding him of the horror movie in which he lived. He then scrubbed himself head to toe with a bar of Irish Spring, just kept scrubbing, till his skin felt tight and squeaky. He didn’t get out until the water started turning cold. Then he wrapped himself in a towel, went back to the bedroom, and stood there, staring at the bed, then staring out the window. The sun had just gone down over the hill, and it looked like the world was on fire. 

He started scouting the drawers and the closets. He thought maybe if he found some new clothes, he could be a new man. _I wish I could just...change,_ she'd said. He found an old blue plaid button-up that was for a bigger guy, but Daryl had pretty wide shoulders, and it was long, but it worked. The jeans in the drawer were way too big, however, so he would have to make do with what he had. He shook them out, used a wash cloth to scrub out a couple of stains. He thought about throwing them in the washing machine. He thought about how there was probably a washing machine, something he had never had growing up. He threw on his vest and shook his hair out and looked in the mirror. His face was extraordinarily clean. He could hardly recognize himself. In his mind, he repeated the same words he'd used to when he was a kid, after his mom was dead, and Merle was gone, and their house was gone, too, and he and his dad were living in the Buena Vista trailer park somewhere in the hills of northern Georgia, and he would hide out on the roof with his shotgun and a bag of sunflower seeds, carving crude animal shapes out of wood, waiting for his dad to pass out drunk so that he could go inside and go to sleep. _You're a real person_ _,_ he thought. _You're real. You're real._

Then he heard the front door open and clap shut downstairs. This startled him, yanked him back from the past, like being stuck with a hook.

"Beth?"

"It's me," she said.

He was relieved.

She came upstairs. She was wearing clothes that looked familiar. It was a yellow polo t-shirt, like the one from the country club. But this one was so clean. Her hair was clean, too, and her skin. The stitches in her forehead and in her cheek had been gone for some time now, and the scars were very pink. She did not try to hide them. She had her hair braided down her back with the little curly pieces popping up off her forehead. They were like little familiar springs. 

"You took a shower," she said. "Me, too. I could hardly stop myself."

"Me neither."

Beth looked at him wide and warm as the sun. She palmed him on both his rough cheeks and said, "I've never seen your face like this."

"Like what? Clean?"

"Yeah," said Beth.

"Is it good, or bad."

She got up on her tip-toes, and he bent forward, yielding to her as she kissed his forehead, then his nose. "It's good. Don't be silly."

She dropped her backpack off her shoulders, right onto the floor. Daryl pressed his hands to her waist, palming right to the curve where it was warm. She tucked the hair behind his ears. She smelled like green tea.

"You ready for the party?" he said.

"We're supposed to meet back at Rick's first," she said. "We don't have to go, Daryl, if you don't want. I mean it."

"I want," said Daryl. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he said. "I mean, we should go, right? We should at least try."

She smiled. She kissed him. She tasted like fruit, and he was jarred. His hands turned in the folds of her shirt, found her skin. She had already taken him once, under that stupid Baltimore Ravens blanket, wrung him dry like a goddam dish rag. She did it so easily. He pushed his hands up the full length of her back, smooth and endless and he didn't realize at first that she had put up her arms and shrugged right out of her shirt. That yellow shirt was on the floor.

She seemed to sense him waver. "We can turn back," she said in earnestness. She looked him right in the eye. Hers were so blue, and so big, he got lost a little. 

But not for too long. "I don't wanna turn back, Beth. Do you?"

"No," she said. 

And it had made him thankful, so he kissed her and picked her up so that her feet left the ground. She made a small noise that made him pull away nervously, but it was just a noise of gratitude and she tugged him right back toward her, like they were little animals in a burrow. 

On the bed, her hair was like a yellow rope over her shoulder. He took the rubber band away, stretched it around his wrist. It was pink. He undid the braid because he wanted it to be everywhere, and she undid his shirt and it mixed up with hers on the carpet, and then the room felt lived in, and his heart got fast, and his hands trembled.

The rest of their clothes went away, and then the space between them on big white bed went away, and then Beth’s virginity went away, and so did any trace of indecision Daryl may have felt in the past about whether it was right or whether she was something he deserved. Maybe he was worried about her being too good for him, or this strange, new place, or them losing the innocence inside that started with a fire back in Georgia and that he had wanted so bad to be real, because he knew now that it was real. He was real, and she was, and they were. All that other shit was just his mind doing amazing things like backflips and acrobatics to avoid acknowledging the simple fact that he felt, for the first time in his life, safe.

When he was way too close, he asked her what he should do. It was too soon, he said. He didn’t want to get her pregnant. She smiled at his chivalry and his discipline and how it never went away. She told him, _Anywhere,_ because she was his and he was hers and no part of them would go to waste. It was just them, together. So he pulled out, and it was like his head splitting open with a long, white light. He came, and he was emptied, and then numb, and when the numbness subsided and he could move again, he curled into the bed beside her, where she was warm and wet and sticky and pretty, and they lie there for a while.

She kissed him on the forehead. He had his hands in her hair. They were both feeling free and grand and like the whole world was at their feet and they were winning, finally. 

4.

That night, they went back to Rick's where everybody was getting ready for Deanna's party. Maggie, Michonne, and Sasha were there already. Daryl sat in a chair and watched while Beth brushed her hair, put on her chapstick. Maggie wanted to try it, and so Beth gave her the little red tube and they both puckered up at the same time to judge the color in the mirror. Soon, everyone else came. They just followed in, filling the house with their sounds and sights and smells, and Abraham was drinking a beer, and Glenn sat down next to Daryl on the couch and he smelled clean, and he said, "God, I hope this thing doesn't go all night. I'm tired as shit."

The women were all milling in and out, all of them looking awkwardly upon one another, smiling in a reassuring fashion, with clean faces and clean clothes. They didn't speak all that much, just enough to make a chatter. Michonne had a tube of mascara that she had found back in Jetersville and she passed it around and they all took turns painting their eyelashes. Even Sasha was trying that night. Carl carried baby Judith downstairs, and she was wearing a white sweater with a little gray tutu. It was like being in a butterfly colony, thought Daryl, all these girls he knew, flitting around and looking beautiful in all of their different ways. He held Beth's hand as they walked to Deanna's.

When they got to the party, Rick looked sharp in a white button-up shirt and was full of diplomacy and his trademark silvery effort. Daryl could not tell if it was earnest, or if it was a con, but it was working on Deanna all the same. Abraham was with Sasha, and the two of them seemed to be talking a lot, and Daryl watched as Beth tried making conversation with Rosita who was subdued and then instead of talking, they ended up playing a game of Five Card Draw with Noah, Eugene, and Tara at the table in the kitchen. Daryl was impressed that Beth knew the rules, but he thought it must have been Hershel who taught her. He figured Maggie knew, too, and it was always rousing games of poker at the Greene house. He wished he could have been there.

Reg, Deanna's husband, was smoking a cigar as Daryl watched Beth play. At first, he was fine, but eventually, it made Daryl feel sick. The smell reminded him of his dad and Swisher Sweets in the evenings, and how he would fill the damn trailer with smoke until Daryl puked in the kitchen sink and then belt it out of him. Earlier that day, while they had been lying in the big white bed by the big, clear window, Beth had drawn pictures over all his scars with her fingers and the circular scars on his arms and the back of his neck.

Daryl needed air. He stepped outside and had a cigarette alone. Beth was still inside, playing cards. He looked down at his wrist. He still had her pink rubber band, wrapped tight. He thought about her, but not really. She just sort of occupied a certain space inside his mind at all times. It wasn't permanently conscious. After a little while, he saw Aaron pass by holding a paper grocery bag.

"Hey," said Aaron, stopping on the sidewalk, at the bottom of the porch steps.

Daryl put the cigarette out on the rail and flicked it into the grass. He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "You guys comin to this thing or what?"

Aaron seemed happy, so happy to see him. He said, "No. No, we rarely...go to these things. But I'm glad you went, and Beth. You're trying. That counts for everything in this world."

Daryl took a deep breath of the crisp Virginia air, filling his lungs. "Not everything," he said, "but a lot of good things."

"You and Beth should come by our place," said Aaron. "When you leave the party. Eric is making way too much spaghetti, and we've got wine, and Pictionary."

"What the hell is Pictionary?" said Daryl.

Aaron stared at him like he was somewhat of an adorable alien. "Just some stupid party game. Anyway, you should come. We would love to get to know you both."

"Yeah, okay," said Daryl. "We'll come by."

"Terrific."

After Aaron was gone, Beth came outside looking for Daryl and held his hand. She placed her head on his shoulder, and together, they looked at the moonlit gazebo. There were ducks that would come to hang out in that gazebo, every morning, with all of their babies. Daryl had started noticing Carl, that he would go out early and sit on the bench and feed them stale crackers. Sometimes, Enid would come, too, and she would sit on the exact opposite side of the bench. Like a damn Norman Rockwell painting. He tucked some of the hair behind Beth's ear and kissed her on the temple.

When they went back inside the party, they found Rick, who was turning down a glass of whiskey from Reg. Rick was holding Judith and standing with Jesse, who was pretty, but there was something off about that, thought Daryl. Something wasn't right.

"You two should stay at your own house tonight," said Rick, looking at them and then at Judith, full of angelic love. "I think, I think everything's okay. For now. There's a lot of work to do, but for now, as long as we're on our guard, this place is safe. Don't you think?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Daryl heard at the concert is
> 
> "Not Alone" by Patty Griffin ([spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/2SXtIzmLn2a8WHDbxAt6Ai?si=Gvb6jy8FT72j-WZz_5KqRQ) | [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOQkQZUmIA))
> 
>  **A quick note:** With this chapter, I thought a lot about how Rick would be different than he is in the show, like if Beth is alive, and Daryl is sturdy and growing and on his side. He's had to face down a lot of bad stuff, but he did not have to face down Gareth and the Terminus guys in the church, and he did not lose Beth nor Tyreese. I also feel that seeing Daryl find some sort of solace is revitalizing for him, and hopeful, as he loves Daryl, and Beth is important to him and to his family, and so is protecting Hershel's legacy. I think Rick wants to be hopeful and that he is actually an optimist. That's part of why his descent in season 5/6 is so frightening. I think he would still operate on a certain level of suspicion, but it is not to the same degree of intensity. Carol is also not there to fuel certain of his fires, though do not worry, as Jesse's plight won't go unnoticed. Nobody can spot a derelict alcoholic better than Beth, except for maybe Daryl. Thank you for reading. <3 -gala
> 
> End: Part 3
> 
> Next up - _Part 4: The Climb_


	13. The Apple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though I am old with wandering  
> Through hollow lands and hilly lands,  
> I will find out where she has gone,  
> And kiss her lips and take her hands;  
> And walk among long dappled grass,  
> And pluck till time and times are done  
> The silver apples of the moon,  
> The golden apples of the sun.
> 
> -William Butler Yeats, from _The Song of Wandering Aengus_
> 
>   
> **PART 4: THE CLIMB**

Beth had a bowl of dry Special-K for breakfast, and then she put on a clean t-shirt and her Converse and brushed her hair and went over to Rick’s house. Rick was already out the door, doing god knows what. His constable’s business. Carl was sitting at the kitchen table in the warm light of morning, also eating a bowl of dry cereal, but he was eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and he was eating his with a spoon and reading the back of the cereal box and laughing. Judith was sitting on a blue blanket on the floor with a bottle of formula milk, batting at a stack of plastic cups, glancing up at Carl as if interested in what could be so funny.

Beth sat down on the floor with baby Judith.

“Is Daryl on that supply run, to help fix the power?” said Carl, still reading his cereal box.

“Yeah. They just left.”

He looked at her, from beneath the brim of Rick’s hat. “Are you worried?”

She looked at her wrist, the long, pink scars. “Yeah.”

Carl came down and sat next to her and Judith. He handed Beth a golden apple.

“Oh my god. Where did you get this?” she said.

“Enid found it,” he said. “She found a whole bunch of them, growing on a tree outside the walls.”

“Enid found an apple tree? I’ve been lookin for one.”

"She knows these woods really well." He shrugged.

Beth looked into the shine off the apple’s yellow skin. It was so pretty. It looked fake. “Can I just have this? I feel like it ain’t right.”

“She found a whole bunch more,” said Carl. “She gave them all to the pantry. Don’t worry.”

Baby Judith made a cute noise of excitement. Beth took a deep breath and bit into the apple. 

“Is it good?”

“It’s super good,” she said. Then she got up and went and cut it in half with a kitchen knife. She gave the other half to Carl.

“That’s okay,” he said. "You deserve it."

“Take it.”

He took it. They went and sat out on the porch with baby Judith, swinging on the porch swing, eating their apple halves. The weather was cooling off, but you could still warm yourself in the sun, and you could still wear a t-shirt outside. 

Beth picked a couple seeds from the core, flicked them off the porch and into the warm, green grass. She was thinking about Daryl.

"You okay?" said Carl.

"I just need somethin to keep my mind off things." 

Jesse walked by then. She wore a plaid shirt unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up. She was holding a laundry basket full of glass jars. Beth and Carl waved, but she didn’t wave back. She put her head down and seemed to be purposely avoiding them.

“That was weird,” said Carl. 

“Yeah, it was."

After a little while, with the birds singing in the yard, and Judith getting sleepy on his chest, Carl said, “We could go apple-picking. Enid knows the way. That'll keep your mind off things, right?”

“It will,” said Beth. All that was left of her apple was the stem and half the core. “Yeah, that sounds good."

“Ain’t nobody gonna fuck around on this run,” said Daryl. They piled out of the van next to a truck lot outside the warehouse. Him, Noah, Glenn, Tara, Eugene, plus Nicholas and Aiden from Alexandria. “It ain’t a game. People die on these kinds of runs all the time. I seen it. One dumbass move and you're lunchmeat." Daryl was looking right at Aiden. “You want that to happen to you, or one of your men?”

Aiden was subdued. He was intimidated by Daryl, but he was also fascinated by Daryl. Daryl was everything that Aiden was not and everything that he could never be. He had met Beth a couple times. She was nice to him once, outside his house when he dropped his house key in the grass while in a rush to get to the lookout tower. She picked up the key and caught up with him and said, _Hey, you dropped this._ She reminded him of a lemon bar. He had not seen or talked to a girl like her in what felt like a hundred years. He was a monk. He was celibate and bored and shooting things had made him feel powerful. But that was stupid. Beth was Daryl’s girlfriend, and a guy like that, getting a girl like her, it was social proof of something. So Aiden, being smart, kept his head down. “Of course I don’t want that to happen.”

“Good,” said Daryl. “Me neither.”

They moved in small groups, headed toward a door marked _Delivery Entrance_. Eugene had been walking with Tara when the two were ambushed by a walker next to a storage pod. They seemed to have been arguing when Tara promptly hulled it with her knife. After that, Eugene got unnerved. He came hustling up to Daryl with a question.

Daryl didn’t really know anything about Eugene besides the mullet. “What’s goin on.”

“Nothing, I—I just. I don’t know if Noah’s told you, exactly, but he and I recently discovered, within the dear confines of our own four walls at the Alexandria Safe Zone, a complete edition of the tabletop game _Dungeons and Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation_. Naturally, both of us, having been participants of said game genre in past or former lives, were very excited. Beth, upon noticing our lively conversation at Deanna’s party, expressed interest in possibly taking part in one of our campaigns of late, and I wondered if you, too, might like to join us. Not tonight, of course, due to our impending exhaustion upon completion of present task, but in a few days, for Noah’s birthday. We did ask Beth what she thought, per your interest in our fantastical enterprise, but she wasn’t sure, so she told us just to ask you directly. Sir.”

Daryl stared at Eugene like he was insane. Then he stared at Noah. “What the hell is he talking about?”

Noah patted Daryl on the back. “We’re gonna have a game night on Friday, for my birthday, at our place. You like games, right?”

"I guess. Maybe Beth mentioned something.”

“Be there around seven.”

"Yeah, okay.”

"You won't regret it!" said Eugene.

Earlier that week, Beth and Daryl had gone outside the walls so that Beth could practice the crossbow and forage for apples. She wanted to bake a pie for Noah's birthday. But they found pears instead, four or five, fallen from a tree near a babbling brook. They ate them all. The pears were so ripe, the juices glistened off their faces where they sat on a big log and devoured everything but the seeds and the stems. They kissed, and their mouths were glorious and sweet. Daryl put his hand down the front of her jeans, made her whimper a little, whispering, _Quiet, little songbird_ until she came. They made love right there on the river bank, all sticky, her hair wound up in his fingers, pretending like nothing existed but them. He went slow and deep. A couple days before, Beth had begged him to finish inside of her, because she wanted to know what it felt like. Daryl hadn't known what it felt like either, truth be told. They stopped caring after that. It was the end of the world.

When it was done, Beth was dreamy and alive, with her cheeks all pink, and she took out her knife with the pearlescent handle that he had found for her back on those country roads outside Atlanta. _Love is all you need._ She carved their initials into the log: _B.G. + D.D.,_ and it was corny, but it was good. It was how it was supposed to be.

Sometimes, Daryl thought about Merle, and if Merle was here, and what Merle would think, about him being happy. He remembered this time, back at the prison, when Merle was back after being left for dead by the Governor, and Beth sang a Tom Waits song at the top of her lungs, trying to make everybody calm down. Merle was on his feet faster than anybody in that entire goddam cell block, looking at her with his face practically pressed to the bars. When they were little, like real young, some of Daryl’s earliest memories were of their Grandma Jean and how she had used to sing Lavern Baker songs in the kitchen. She didn’t have Beth’s chops but she was damn near okay, and that day, he knew that Merle was thinking it, the same thing he was, and it was probably the closest they’d been to real brothers in twenty-two years.

Now, Beth was in the woods with Carl and Enid. She had dropped off Judith with Maggie and Deanna for a little while, and then they went to the armory and checked out guns. Beth and Enid just wanted pistols, but Carl carried a pistol, plus a heavy shotgun over his shoulder on a strap. They walked around in the trees, got a couple miles out, mostly following Enid. It was cooler this afternoon. They were all wearing sweatshirts. Beth’s was a pale blue for UNC. She had found it in the clothing bank and liked the color. The woods were quiet but for the birds up in the trees.

When they finally got to the orchard, they stepped over some flattened barbed wire but then, right away, had to stop. There was a moose. It was bigger than anything they’d ever seen. Bigger than a horse, as big as a car. It had its nose up in one of the apple trees, picking it clean.

They hid behind a tree trunk.

“Holy shit. How do you get rid of a moose?” said Carl. 

"I didn't know we had moose in Virginia," said Enid.

"Could be the walkers are messing with their migration patterns," said Beth. "Daryl did tell me once that you don’t wanna sneak up on a moose or they’ll trample you to death. They're dumb as rocks."

“So what do we do?” said Carl.

Enid snuck away. She tip-toed behind the moose and climbed one of the apple trees. Once she got to a sturdy branch, she perched and started chucking apples at the moose. It shook its giant head out, its antlers the size of two dining room chairs. Annoyed, it eventually looked around, made a big, blustery noise, and wandered away.

Enid hopped down, her boots crunching in the brush, and dusted off her jeans. 

“Good job,” said Beth.

“Thanks,” said Enid, and she tossed Beth an apple. It was shiny and gold. She had a sad face, thought Beth, but she was trying.

They gathered as many apples as they could into Beth’s backpack. They also filled a canvas sack Enid had found in the pantry. They must have gathered fifteen pounds worth, maybe twenty. Beth got really warm at one point, took off the UNC sweatshirt and tossed it to the ground where it got dirty. Underneath, she was wearing this old ratty thing that she'd stolen from Daryl. She liked how it smelled like him. When they finished, she picked up the sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. Carl insisted on carrying the canvas sack back to Alexandria, which made Enid blush and roll her eyes, but she didn't protest.

As they were walking, Carl took point. It seemed important to him, with his hat and his gun. Beth hung back and Enid seemed kind of weird, like she was thinking too much. Eventually she said to Beth, "Have you ever thought about just...leaving? Like, leaving and never coming back?"

Beth adjusted the straps on her backpack. It was heavy, but she'd carried worse. "Are you thinking about leaving?"

"Yeah," said Enid. She looked up at the sky. Her hair was long and very straight, like a whip. "Sometimes, it just feels like so much. And like it's so...pointless."

"I get what you mean," said Beth. "I've felt like that before."

"When?"

"After my mama." She wasn't sure what to say. She didn't tell the whole truth. "I thought about all sorts of things. Running away, I thought about that."

"So why didn't you?"

"Well, my daddy, and my sister, for starters. But also, Carl's mom," said Beth. "Lori. She stopped me."

Enid looked down at her boots. The toes were so worn, they looked thin as paper. "You knew her?"

"Yeah," said Beth. "She was the bravest woman I ever knew. She would have liked you."

"Why?"

"Because you're brave, too."

Enid had her knife out. She was studying its blade. It was a beautiful tool with a mahogany handle. They kept walking, their boots crunching on the leaves. The seasons were changing.

"Hey, guys," said Carl after a little while. He was poking his gun through some trees up ahead. "Come look at this."

He had found a little white shack. The doors were boarded up and there were some garbage cans tipped over, and some old boxes of books and tarnished copper pots and pans. When they went to check it out, a couple walkers woke up from the bushes, started making their ill-fated shamble. Beth, Enid, and Carl just used their knives. There were only three and they didn't wanna make noise. When they were done, they wiped their hands off and noticed that two of the walkers, they had markings on their foreheads, like a branding. The letter _W_. They also looked like they had been burned while they were still alive, all over their hands and their necks. 

Beth got down on her knees to look more closely. One of them, she was a blond woman in a dress. Beth studied that _W._ The cuts had been made while she was still alive.

"Weird," said Carl. "I wonder what it means."

The light was getting low. There was nothing at the little shack worth taking, except for a couple cookbooks, one of them by Martha Stewart. Enid shoved them in her shoulder bag, and they all went home.

Meanwhile, at the warehouse, Eugene found what the thing he was looking for. He'd gotten very excited, and even Tara patted him on the back with pride. There were a few dozen walkers trapped in a storage space behind a chainlink fence, so they decided to do a quick sweep for supplies. Aiden, Glenn, and Nicholas had been scouring boxes next to a fortified window. The warehouse was dusty and dark, and Daryl was with Noah, poking at a couple other crates in the aisle one-over. At some point, a rogue walker armored up SWAT-style stumbled past. Aiden saw it first, and in his panic, started popping off rounds in rapid succession, straight into the bullet proof vest and off the face shield. The noise was riling up the walkers against the chainlink while Daryl and Noah watched helpless through through the shelves.

“He’s got armor,” said Glenn.

Aiden kept shooting. “I got it.”

“Let him get closer,” said Glenn. “Stop.”

Daryl saw the grenade, hooked to the utility pocket on the front of the bulletproof vest, and started shouting. Glenn gave up hemming or hawing and bum-rushed Aiden from behind, tackled him to the ground, but just as he did, one more bullet let off and then it was so loud, Daryl saw stars and he saw the sound like a white hot knife in his ears. The grenade had gone up.

When he opened his eyes, his head was full of bells and banging pots and pans. In his vision there was only dust and swimming fishes in the stars. He tried opening his jaw, but it felt locked or wired shut, and for a split second, he wondered if he was dead. He wondered if they were all dead, and if this was the end.

But then he got to his feet. He spat a mouthful of blood, started shouting everywhere to try and figure out if he was alive, or who was alive. Then Noah was shaking him by the shoulders, covered in dust so that he looked like some kind of ghost and Daryl would never forget that, how he looked like a ghost, because it was the image that anchored him back to reality. He was not dead. He must have been screaming Noah's name. Noah was saying, “Daryl, DARYL. I’m right here. You okay, man?”

They looked around, like finding focus through a pinhole. The walkers were getting out the storage fence through a hole that had blown in its side, and as the dust began to clear, they saw Glenn, rolling onto his back, coughing while Aiden staggered to his feet and pulled him up by the armpits. Daryl shouted something, Glenn said he was okay. Nicholas had a big gash in his forehead, was bloody all down the side of his face and staggering around, popping off shots at the walkers willy-nilly as they started slinking near.

"Leave it,” said Daryl, feeling like he might throw up. “We gotta go."

They found Eugene with Tara on the other side of a huge pile of heavy boxes. She was unconscious, had been hit on the head with a stray rod from one of the shelving units, and the bleeding was severe. Eugene had begun to panic, holding her in his arms, the blood soaking into his shirt, but there was no time. He said, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Tara." As the walkers were rounding the corner, Daryl lost his cool and started hacking them down one by one, and he could sense Glenn beside him, like the old days in the prison, putting as many down as they could while Eugene hauled Tara over his shoulder and in the chaos of Nicholas and Aiden's ensuing gunfire, they all started to run.

At some point, Noah tripped, just as he was emerging into the daylight. Daryl saw him get tangled up in the doorway, a huge pile of copper wire, and he tried to get there, but a single walker tripped around the corner too soon. Eugene saw, picked up his gun, shot it a couple times in the chest, sending it backward, then Daryl caught it in the head with an arrow. Seemed a sheer miracle. Eugene was still crying as he took Noah by the hand to help him up off the ground, stumbling around under Tara's weight. Noah dusted himself off and said, "Thanks, man. Let me help you."

They got her back to the van and they all piled in. It was getting dark now, and Glenn had to fire off a few strays, their heads popping like water balloons, and they collapsed in the road. Together, Daryl and Aiden hauled the doors shut and Eugene peeled out of there as fast as physics would allow, straight back to Alexandria, with the moon overhead, like a great eye.

That night, waiting for Daryl, Beth put baby Judith down around 7:30 and fell asleep on Rick’s couch. She had a dream that while she was picking apples with Carl in a meadow full of deer, she got shot in the head by a stranger, and she died, and she floated up over her body, and she watched as Carl carried her home and set her down in Daryl’s arms. Daryl wept. In the dream, she was wearing a yellow dress and it felt so real, like she was watching herself die in another life, through a peephole. Nobody buried her. They just set her down in a field, and one-by-one, they all walked away, even Maggie, though she had stayed a long time. Everybody was gone then except for Daryl, who stayed forever, planting trees and grass and flowers, living in a quiet camp all by himself, and one day he died and turned into a tree in the shape of a big, lost man with a sad face, and no matter how she tried, she could not speak to him, could not make a sound. White flowers grew all over her body, and they grew all over his.

“I found apples today,” said Beth.

He was back. They were sitting at the kitchen table, by the calm light of a lantern. When they'd all got home, Eugene had been crying, bringing Tara to the infirmary. She was gonna be okay, but she was still unconscious, and he was a mess. Daryl watched Beth closely as she cleaned the cuts in his hands. She used cotton balls and antiseptic. It stung a lot, but he didn’t care. She had sunburn on her cheeks, and that was new to him. Her hair was tangly, and he knew that later before they went to sleep, she would change into a big t-shirt and brush through those tangles in front of the mirror while violently cursing under her breath.

“Where’d you find apples.”

“Me, Carl, and Enid found an orchard,” she said, wrapping a piece of tape around the gauze. “A few miles out.”

“Just the three of you?"

“It was okay,” she said. “We ran into a few walkers, but we took care of it. It was okay."

She wanted him to be proud of her, he knew. He was proud. It just wasn't that easy anymore. It hadn't been for a while.

“I know,” he said. He felt messy, tired. It had been a long day without her, things always going south without her. “I just don’t like the idea of you being out there alone.” He meant without him. “I worry.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she said. Then she finished up the tape, touched his cheek. “I promise. And I was worried today, too, Daryl. Going out there, it helped me keep my mind off what you were doin, which, by the way, was actually dangerous. Sitting around Rick’s with Judith all day, I’d’ve been a wreck. At least this way, we got apples.”

“You gonna bake that pie?” 

She kissed him, soft. “Of course.”

A moth flew in, had come from somewhere to find the light. It tapped against the lantern, against its best interest. Eventually, it would burn up. Daryl watched. For some reason, he thought of Carol. Just her sad eyes. She was like that moth. “I hope Tara wakes up in time for Noah's party," said Daryl. "She really took a bad hit."

"We just have to pray," said Beth. "She's alive. That's what matters for now."

She cleaned up the cut on his face. She taped it gently, with a piece of gauze. When she finished, she sat up straight, like she was very pleased with herself. “You’re mended, Daryl Dixon."

“You're a very pretty nurse."

“Hush.”

“Nurse,” he said. “I think I got a concussion. Can you tell me where I am?”

“You’re right here,” she said. “In our house.”

“We got a house?”

"We actually do."

He smiled. He looked at her face, and he saw a pretty girl that he knew. On the way home, in the van, he remembered Aiden, how he was fucked up with remorse. He was looking at Tara, the bloody rag on her head. He started to cry. He said over and over, with his rifle in his lap, _I’m so sorry. This is my fault._ Glenn patted him on the knee. He said, _It’s okay, man._ Noah was holding Tara’s head in his hands. He said, _Bro, it’s gonna be okay. She’s breathing, man. She’s okay._

Daryl was glad to be home. “Did anything else happen today?” 

Beth thought about it. “Oh. We saw a moose.”

"A moose? Noway.”

That night, with the day behind them, they were so in love, they lost track of time and space. They went upstairs and he took her out of her jeans, and she took him out of his. She had lit one candle, right next to the music box on the dresser, and the room was dim, smelling like flowers. She had her tangled hair, some old ratty shirt he was pretty sure had used to be his, and before that, had used to be Merle's. She tugged it off, let it fall to the carpet. She had not yet showered the day off of her, and he could taste everything, down to her core.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Beth sang in the prison is
> 
> "Hold On" by Tom Waits ([youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P5jV4lHHR0) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3GlYv2EDC7EBoslv2dOE0G?si=PC03h5dDRGaZ3EBK-uhoqA))


	14. Fire and Water

_B.G. + D.D._

Carol knelt to the ground, ran her hand over the surface of the bark. It was a downed tree, right on the river bank, with the letters carved in by a knife. The water was low here, and murky. You could see the minnows, swooshing by.

_D.D._

“It’s fresh,” said Morgan, poking around, looking for supplies.

“How do you know.”

“The wood, the cuts are still dry, the edges raised. See? You can still see some of the splinters. Look around you. There’s a whole little camp here. Noise alarms, pear rinds, a blanket. Someone was here, not that long ago.” He used his long stick, pushed around the red blanket. It was soft and full of burrs. “Two of them.”

“Lovers?”

He gave her a long, knowing look. “Maybe.”

She sighed. “Well, whoever they are, they’re smart.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because they’re not dead.”

“That we know of. You think it could be someone from your group?”

The light was starting to go away over the ridge, into the canyon in the near distance. The canopy was thick here, but the leaves were falling, and the trees did not provide good cover from walkers. "Maybe," she said.

“We should camp,” said Morgan. 

“I was hoping we’d find a house or something,” said Carol. “A little love shack maybe.”

He smiled. “You keep me entertained, Ms. Peletier. I’ll give you that.”

“Please don’t call me _Ms. Peletier_. It makes me sound like an old hag.”

“As you wish, Carol.”

They wore ponchos, which they had picked up at a ranch supply store in a bumfuck town somewhere in eastern Georgia during an electrical storm. Morgan’s was red. Carol’s was gray. They had driven most of the way, from Coweta County, on their way to Washington D.C.. Carol knew how to hotwire cars, ever since the prison, and Morgan was very good at finding them. They drove an old Wagoneer, and then when they broke down, a blue Dodge Caravan. They ran out of gas just south of Quantico, and the road there was blocked anyway, by dozens of armored vehicles and SWAT trucks. They had been walking ever since, on backroads. Going on twenty miles over the course of two days, combing through these woods, finding little signs here and there--a kitchen timer, a walker with a busted arrow in its brain, shotgun shells, a comic book with the pages all wet, distant traces of other people that made Carol wonder if they were close. 

They decided to walk a few miles further, found a small, white shack with the windows boarded up. Morgan pried them off and cleared out the inside while Carol hammered in wooden stakes and strung up a chorus of hubcaps and empty cans around the perimeter, mostly things she’d salvaged back at the lovers’ camp. They made a fire, ate canned ham for dinner, a feast, something they’d scrounged up at a convenience store a bunch of miles back. Morgan used a rag to clean and polish his stick. Carol didn’t understand the whole stick thing, but she also didn’t ask. She cleaned her gun. She unrolled her sleeping bag and made her little bed. Morgan slept on the cold, hard ground, still as a stone. She lie awake, staring up at the ceiling as it started to rain, cold little droplets pushing through the old wood, sizzling in the fire.

_D.D._

Aaron knew how to make wine. There was a little vineyard in the house where he lived with Eric, and the vines had been bursting since the day they moved in. It was why they had chosen their house to begin with and by now, he had a full barrel and so he filled two bottles to bring to Noah’s party. It was a red blend and he named it _Genesis._ At some point, while she was playing Dungeons and Dragons with Noah, Eugene, Sasha, and Carl, Beth had three glasses, which Daryl learned that night was enough to put her entirely on her ass. He had to carry her home, passed out sleeping in his arms with her face in his neck. Rick walked with them, hands in his pockets. The night was cool and clear. There was a dog barking, somewhere. 

“Somethin wrong?” said Daryl.

“No.”

Daryl knew he was lying. “Okay, man.”

“I just—” Rick dropped his head back, looking up at the stars. “I was talking to Carl today. You know, he wants to plant flowers, in the front yard. Like, do landscaping. I don’t know.”

“That sounds good.”

“He and Enid, they go out sometimes into the woods and forage. Or, I don't know what they do. Maybe I should keep an eye on that."

Daryl found this amusing. 

"Anyway," said Rick. "Carl asked me today what his mom’s favorite flower was. But I couldn't remember.”

Daryl nudged Beth up a little higher. She was heavy, flopped over drunk like that. She made a little, sweet sigh. “So what’d you tell him.”

“I said I couldn’t remember the name of it, that I needed to find a picture. So Enid gave me some goddam book. It’s huge. It’s called like, _Horticulture in the American South._ Must be 500 goddam pages long. Now I’m—I’m fucked.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to just make somethin up then.”

“Do you know Beth’s favorite flower?” said Rick.

Daryl looked down at her face, her red cheeks. Her hair was all down and messy. She had put a little braid in the side, like the days after the prison. He hadn’t seen her do that in a while. “No, I ain't sure.”

Rick kept walking.

“You want me to wake her up and ask her?”

“No,” said Rick, smiling. “That’s okay.”

When they got to the house, Rick opened the door for them. They went in, standing in the living room. Daryl set Beth down on the couch, pushed the hair off her face. “You wanna stay for a while?” He was a little worried. Nobody ever talked about Lori.

“Not tonight,” said Rick. Daryl walked with him back to the porch. “Thank you though. I should get back home. Deanna and Reg stayed with Judith tonight and I need to let them off the hook.”

They heard a ruckus then. They both turned around to see. It was Pete. He was hammered, stumbling up the sidewalk. He had knocked into a mailbox, swearing up a storm. He looked up at some point, noticed that Daryl and Rick were both staring right at him. This seemed to make him self-conscious, but angrily. Daryl raised his hand to wave hello. Pete said, “What are you lookin at, you fucking redneck?”

“Redneck?” said Daryl. “Only people I like get to call me that. Little bitch.”

“I oughta get him home before somebody comes and beats the shit out of him,” said Rick.

“You want help?”

“Nah. I can handle one drunken idiot.”

Daryl smiled, then looked back at Pete, in seriousness. Pete was holding his wrist, as if injured. “You got your eye on that, right?”

"Pete?”

“That man is a fucking degenerate,” said Daryl. “It ain’t like Hershel, fallin off the wagon after losin his wife. I ain’t seen alcoholism like that since my pa died. It’s mean.”

“I’ll take care of Pete.” Rick clasped Daryl on the shoulder, glanced back toward the door, to Beth. “You just take care of her,” he said, wistful. “Protect her.”

Daryl felt as though they were still somehow talking about Lori. “I will.”

Rick left, and Daryl went inside, shut the door, locked it. He took off his shoes. He sat next to Beth on the gray couch. The couch was soft and spongey and new and he thought, probably expensive. He wondered who had used to sit on this couch, before the change, like if the guy was a father, a lawyer, a doctor. He thought about Hershel again. He looked up at the ceiling, as if this might make it so god could hear him better, or the old man himself. In some ways, they felt the same to Daryl. He said, “The world is bad. I don’t know what to do.”

“Daryl?” said Beth. She stirred. Her hair was like a million curls now, spilling everywhere.

He put his hand on her hip, held it there, here on earth. “I’m right here, babe.” Then he kind of rubbed her warm back a little bit. He couldn't tell how awake she was. 

It was a few days later. Daryl, Beth, and Aaron were making camp inside a little backroads gas station about ten or so miles north of Alexandria. Beth had set up some sound alarms around the perimeter, mostly glass bottles and tin cans and twine, something she’d made while Daryl was skinning and cleaning their dinner. Aaron had built a fire. They’d been in the woods for most of the day. It was a quiet area that Aaron seemed to know well. He said that he and Eric had been combing the walkers out of that place for weeks, trying to draw in travelers looking to camp. Sort of like a reverse trap. Beth thought it was pretty, very wooded and kind of backwater. It reminded her of home. Behind the gas station, there was a huge Magnolia tree in full bloom. That was really rare for October. She thought maybe it was something to do with the drought, and all the heavy rain that came after. Or perhaps it was like that moose, a unicorn, a diamond in the rough.

"You like magnolia flowers?" said Daryl, looking up at the tree with her. 

"Yeah, I do," she said. "It's what my mama had in her wedding bouquet. I remember from the pictures, and I always said I'd have the same one day. They smell so good."

Daryl reached up, plucked one for her off the nearest branch. It was a big old saucer magnolia, robust and pink. He twirled it to his nose, breathed in, then he gave it to her. She grew soft, like butter. She stood on her tip-toes and kissed him. 

Inside the gas station then, they moved some of the shelves around to make better walls and block the window, make a little hidden sleeping unit. There was no food, but there was running water in the bathroom, which felt like a fucking revelation. Beth washed her face. Daryl did, too. Aaron ran a whole bunch through his curly hair. When they were all fed and night fell, they unrolled their sleeping bags. Beth fell asleep quickly, by the fire. She had been real tired, the magnolia flower just sitting pretty there, right on her purple backpack. The shadows from the flames threw across her hair, and the fire itself was low but crackling. Nothing much had happened that day, out in the woods north of Alexandria. But Daryl still felt a little hypertensive, now that it was over. He sat, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette with his eyes closed, letting the nicotine soak into his blood, make him blurry, while Aaron sharpened his blade and then he was writing something in a notebook. Daryl opened his eyes to watch. Aaron was meticulous and patient. He was not particularly gritty, certainly he was never mean, but he had this sort of brute willingness about him. He didn’t mind getting dirty, tired, being uncomfortable. He didn’t complain about things like that. While they were out there, him and Beth often made engaging conversation with one another, about their hometowns, about Eric, about Maggie, about Judith and Carl. Daryl rarely participated but he was always listening.

“You watch her like a hawk,” Aaron said, scraping a whetstone down the edge of his knife. “You’ve been like that all day.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Aaron. He wasn’t judgmental. He was just easily intrigued. “When you guys came over, after Deanna’s party, I asked you both to come out with me, scouting for others. I thought you’d want to be together. I didn’t know if Beth would—did I step in something?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” said Aaron. “I just meant, are you uncomfortable? With her out here?”

Daryl tossed his cigarette butt into the fire, pressed his thumbnail to his teeth. He was getting it now. “I don’t know.”

Aaron went on. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I just figured, I mean, she was out in the wilderness much longer than I was. She seems capable. But maybe I should have been more…discerning. I know what it’s like.”

“You know what what’s like?”

“Having someone you want to keep out of danger. I asked you out here because I didn’t want to keep putting Eric in danger. Now, here I am, putting you in danger. And Beth. I should have thought it through more carefully.”

“Beth was excited to come.”

“And you?”

Daryl took a deep breath. He squared up with Aaron. He looked at the magnolia flower. “I wanna do this, Aaron. I like the idea. Findin new people, bringin um im. But honestly? When you asked us, that was like a month ago. It was so close to the beginning, I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, I was out there with Beth for a while before all this. She’s a brave girl.”

“What’s changed?” said Aaron. “I’m just curious. I like the two of you. You’re like fire and water, only I’m not sure which is which. It changes.”

Daryl was oddly flattered by this. “I don’t know,” said Daryl, picking up his knife, digging the blade into the stone floor. “Things just got more serious.” He contemplated the last couple weeks. He looked down at his rough, stupid hand, holding that knife. “We ain’t really…been safe.”

“Safe?”

Daryl gave him a look. He wasn’t used to opening up to people, but he was getting used to Aaron. Daryl watched the realization crystallize behind his eyes.

“Oh,” said Aaron, embarrassed. “Right. Sorry, I—it just doesn’t come to mind.”

“I ain’t thought nothing of it, not for a while," said Daryl. "I mean, it’s what it is, you know? It’s the goddamm end of the world. But now I’m just—being out here, with her, I’m thinkin about it.”

“I’m sorry if this is too forward,” said Aaron. “But do you think she’s pregnant?”

Even just the word, it was enough to turn Daryl’s lungs to concrete. “No,” he said, sticking that knife in the floor. “No. I mean. I don’t think so.”

“It’s just the idea then.”

“Yeah,” said Daryl. “And it’s other ideas, too. It’s all…fucked up. I don’t know.”

Aaron looked at Daryl, looking at Beth. Daryl was like a deep well. The more Aaron got to know him, the more he understood how to tap it. The process wasn’t complex once you figured it out. It was figuring it out, that was the hard part. 

“We can head back,” said Aaron. He wore a gold ring on his finger, a gift from Eric. He took it off, then put it back on again. “Tomorrow, first thing.”

“It’s cool,” said Daryl. Then it seemed as if the conversation had simply ended. Daryl lie flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Let’s just get some sleep.”

The next day, they were in the nearby woods. Beth had fastened the magnolia flower to her backpack, along with the jay feather Daryl had given to her back at the grove. She found some grapes growing on a vine, which was reminiscent. She was wearing her UNC sweatshirt again, with her hair braided over her shoulder. She sang as she gathered up the grapes, wrapped them in a plastic grocery bag and shoved them in her purple backpack. She kept a couple bunches. They were big and plump and red. She gave a bunch to Daryl and Aaron and kept some for herself.

They all ate grapes as they walked, the juices bursting down their chins while Beth sang a little more. She was singing a song that Daryl vaguely recognized, and then it hit all at once. Some Bush song from like 1995, called _Glycerine_. In her voice, it sounded like a totally different song, and yet it brought him back.

Daryl didn’t say anything. He just listened, as they walked, their boots crunching in the fallen leaves. It was Aaron who pointed it out. “ _Glycerine,_ right?” said Aaron.

“Yeah,” said Beth. “I used to love that song. It’s so pretty, with all the strings underneath. But so dark on the surface.”

“I saw Bush, live. When I was like, I don’t know, maybe sixteen?”

“I just remember the lead singer. Maggie used to put posters of him on her wall. He was married to Gwen Stefani. I used to love No Doubt. What was his name again?”

“I can’t remember,” said Aaron. “Something Rosendale?”

“Gavin Rossdale,” said Daryl. “I mean, I think that’s him. I kinda remember.”

“That’s it,” said Aaron. “Good job.”

“Thanks.”

But then, Beth saw something strange. It seemed to confuse her.

Daryl stopped cold, put his bow up, on instinct. “What the hell is that."

“Holy shit,” said Aaron.

It was a bad sight. It was buzzing with flies. The woods reeked all of a sudden.

Daryl held Beth back, tugging on her hood protectively. “Don’t.”

“I wanna see,” she said, flinching.

Five or six human torsos were strewn in a pile, surrounded by a perimeter of rocks. All over the torsos, there were carved little Ws. Beth put her sleeve up to her nose as she went closer. It was like something out of _Saw_ or _The People Under the Stairs._ Like a sacrifice. Beth got closer. Her being there, seeing this, Daryl felt a deep and cold disgust, like a knife, some sort of a black rot inside his veins. “This is people,” he said. “This wasn’t walkers that did this.”

“What kind of people do this?” said Beth, her voice going up, like she might cry. “Who does this?”

"Looks like the same ones who carve fuckin Ws in peoples’ skulls.”

“I’ve seen those, too,” said Aaron. He glanced around, like he was afraid they were being watched. “The Ws. I thought it was safe here.”

“This just happened,” said Daryl. 

“We need to leave these woods.”

But Beth seemed to have a different idea. She squeezed her eyes shut, like her face was on fire, but the tears came anyway, and Daryl watched helplessly, as she got pissed off, wiped the tears off her face, and stomped past the grotesque display. She looked at the perimeter of rocks, so meticulously placed and started kicking them. “It’s like the fucking Blair Witch,” she said. Then she got on her hands and knees and started scooping up the dirt and dead, brown leaves with her bare hands and tossing it onto the bodies. “This ain’t human.”

“Beth.”

“Don’t, Daryl,” she said. “It’s gonna attract walkers. These people deserve to be buried.”

“We need to go,” said Aaron. “She’s right, about the walkers. We need to go now.”

They all heard it. Walkers coming out of the trees. Beth got to her feet, her eyes real big. Daryl reached for her hand. They picked up and ran for their lives.

They went as far as they could, must have ran two whole miles. They emerged into a shit little town, a one stoplight town where the streets were covered in leaves and the vines were growing up all over and the buildings, which were all boarded shut. Spray-painted in many colors, on the front of a record store was a picture of an enormous angel, holding a baby. The angel must have been fifteen feet tall. It was looking down at the baby and smiling. They all stopped in their tracks to see.

As they were stopped, loud music began to play from the buildings all around. The music was operatic and cloying, a trap. Daryl called them forward to the record store where he kicked in one of the windows and ushered them all inside. When they got there, Daryl and Aaron immediately started hauling over a vending machine, to cover the window. Beth saw a man, hiding behind one of the shelves with a long axe and a remote control. He stood up, thinking he could escape. As walkers flooded the streets outside, she started shooting her pistol at the man. He had a clean “W,” carved into the right side of his forehead, and she caught him in the right shoulder with a bullet, but he didn’t go down. He came toward her, with that axe picked up over his head, ready to haul it straight into her, so she drew her knife. She was going to shove it up through his chin, right into his brain.

But then he went down. He fell hard, an arrow sticking out of his throat. It had all happened so fast, and stopped so fast, Beth couldn’t catch her breath. She walked right up to the dead guy. She grabbed the remote out of his hands. She searched it, pressed the stop button. The music went away.

She tossed it. She picked up the axe. She flung it halfway across the room. It crashed into a picture frame on the wall. She stepped on his neck and yanked out the arrow. She seemed more pissed off than what was typical. She gave it back to Daryl. She went past, stepping over piles of discarded, post-apocalyptic rubble, headed to the backdoor.

“Beth,” said Daryl. He grabbed her by the shoulder, yanked her back, but she was resisting. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I wanted to kill him,” said Beth. “He was one of them. The people who made that—thing in the woods.”

“So you go after him by yourself?” said Daryl. “You just go in by yourself?”

“I was mad,” she said.

“You were mad?”

Aaron stood by, watching. He as worried, too, but this was none of his business. He peeked through the window. They had gotten there in time. The walkers seemed unconcerned.

“Beth, you can’t do that,” said Daryl. 

“What was I supposed to do?” she said. “I saw him first.”

“You tell me. You let me do it.”

She got quiet after this. She looked down at the blade of her knife, clean and smooth. She put it away calmly, and then she shoved him once, hard, in the chest. 

“What the hell?”

“The way you’re lookin at me right now, it’s like the goddam country club all over again.”

“The country club?”

“Like I need to be taken care of.”

“You do need to be taken care of,” said Daryl. “Sometimes you do. You’re not a fuckin superhero.”

“I ain’t helpless.”

“I didn’t say you were. Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just—I get the feeling.”

“What feeling.”

“Like you’re watchin me. Like you think I can’t deal with this shit. Like you’d rather I just be back in Alexandria. Inside them walls. Singin songs in the kitchen all day long.”

“That is what I want,” said Daryl. “That’s exactly what I want. But I know that ain’t always what you want. I let you come along today. But this ain’t fuckin Rambo.”

“You _let_ me?”

“You need to let it go,” he said, and he got right up in her face. He didn’t want to raise his voice. He said, “What am I supposed to do, Beth? What am I supposed to say? I love you. I want you to be happy, and I ain’t trying to tell you what to do, but I don’t know how to be with you out here and not protect you. That guy was coming straight at you. Straight the fuck _at you._ He was gonna kill you. You need to let me keep you safe. I don’t give a shit about your vendettas, or whatever. I need to keep you safe. If I can’t do that, what the hell are we doing? What the hell am I good for?”

“Uh, guys?” said Aaron.

Daryl shushed him. “Beth. Did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” she said. She was defiant at first.

" _Guys_."

"Shit." Beth started crying. Her pretty face all red and splotchy. It had been a bad day. She said, “You’re good for a lot.” She hugged him hard. “I’m sorry."

"It's okay. Beth, just don't do that sorta shit. Not if you don't have to."

"Okay."

"HEY, GUYS," Aaron said. He was pointing his gun at the backdoor. He looked serious.

"What?"

“We’re not alone.”

Daryl put his bow up. Beth pointed her gun. They saw two people, in cloaks, hoods up. Or maybe it was ponchos. They held out their hands in surrender, a man and a woman, standing in front of the backdoor. The woman in the gray cloak stepped forward.

“Back the fuck up,” said Daryl.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice small and familiar. She took her hood down.

Once again, Beth saw it first. She lowered the gun. “Carol?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Beth sings in the woods is
> 
> "Glycerine" by Bush ([spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/7wpYSigAhQeZp3cdsMQ3Af?si=8gU6GoUXTgCJHez6AHq5nA) | [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOllF3TgAsM))


	15. B.G. + D.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cw: mention of drug overdose_

Sometimes, Carol still thought about the Greene farm. It had not been that long ago, but in her mind, it had become like a myth, or a Genesis story, in which god came down and pressed his hand to the soil, and many people lost their faith. After Sophia, and after the farm fell, and after Shane, and they were all on the road for a lot of months, Carol could not bear the sight of a Cherokee Rose. Every time she saw one, she would calmly pluck its head off and drop it on the ground. Daryl watched her once, with his young face, full of intensity. He didn’t say anything, and she should have felt bad, but she didn’t. She would regret this.

Carol had used to know this guy in high school named Levi. Levi had got his girlfriend pregnant when he was sixteen, then he dropped out of school to fix cars and he worked at the animal shelter and one of the dairies in town. Sometime around when he turned eighteen, Carol heard that his girlfriend left him and took the baby and moved in with her stepfather up in Tennessee. So Levi enlisted in the Army, got on a plane to San Diego, and the second night he was there, he OD’ed in a double-wide trailer somewhere in a city called Oceanside. He did not even make it to the first day of basic training. He had been so quiet in his suffering, thought Carol, that nobody had even known about the pills. Nobody in their whole shit town. Not his family, not his friends or his girlfriend. They were all talking about it. What had happened to Levi? It was a complete mystery. His parents did not have the money for a funeral. Carol brought flowers to his simple grave. 

After Terminus, Carol learned that Daryl was just gone. Nobody had seen him after the prison. Nobody had been with him. There was no trace. Carol had wanted to see him, hear his voice. She had convinced herself he could not die, that he was invincible. Rick’s eyes had got big and wet like they might pop out his head when he said to her at the church, “We have to operate as if he ain’t coming back.” That was what he said. She didn’t blame him. How could she? “We have to assume that he’s gone.” He would not say _dead._ Rick loved Daryl, too. He would not say _dead._

Meanwhile, nobody had mentioned Beth. Carol remembered that. Nobody asked about her. Not even Maggie. It was just assumed that she had died. She was like one of those Cherokee Roses that Carol had plucked up and thrown on the ground by the side of the road. Beautiful and very easy to discard. But dead flowers are not ashes. They fertilize the earth. Sometimes, they grow again, in new forms. It had been Beth who had left Carol that map. 

Carol had been hopeful that day she and Morgan found those initials, carved into the downed tree on the river, that it was Daryl. She had not put together the B.G. How many D.D.s could have existed in the world? Countless of them? It didn’t matter. It made her hopeful, and Carol wasn’t used to hope. When Rick had sent her away, she didn’t care about herself so much. She disliked who she had been before, and while she also disliked who she was becoming, this person, she disliked less. She had lived in more dangerous, more meager, lonelier conditions in the past. At least in this world, she knew how to fight. But she cared about Daryl because he had helped her when not many would. Because he was good and brave, like a knight. Daryl made her think of that boy Levi, from her small town, and how he was good to people, a nice kid who'd made mistakes, and he tried so hard to fix them, even when it hurt, and how nobody knew what was killing Levi until he was already gone.

He was a deep, dark mystery, Daryl. For a long time, she worried about what would become of him.

_B.G. + D.D._

“Carol?” said Beth.

_The lovers._

“It’s me,” said Carol. 

Beth stuck her gun in its holster. She rushed Carol and hugged her so hard it hurt. “You found us,” she said. "How did you find us?"

“You left me a very good map." Carol looked at her, a flower.

Meanwhile, Daryl had not moved. He had merely lowered his bow. He held his chin up high, defiant. To see him, her heart filled and dropped. Standing there, in his living body, so big and tough. What did he think of her? He seemed to have eclipsed himself, like a great moon. He was different.

Beth went to him, and Carol saw why. She grabbed his hand, and he thawed. It was like a magic trick, how he just thawed. That was not something that Carol had seen before. He looked at Beth, and then he looked at Carol. Beth guided him forward. Then, when he got close enough, it was like the floodgates opened and he just broke. Beth let go of his hand. Carol had been holding it in so hard that when he finally embraced her, she cried. "You're alive."

"So are you."

Morgan said, “Did we find the lovers?”

Carol wiped the tears from her eyes, then from Daryl's. She tucked some of the hair behind his ear. “Yes. I think we did.”

"The lovers?" said Daryl.

" _B.G. + D.D.,_ " said Carol.

"You found our tree?" said Beth.

"We found your tree."

After they left the record store, Morgan and Carol lead them through a sliver-thin alley. Daryl had to kill two walkers hanging out of windows. Once they got to the other side, the street opened up into a little backroad, covered in a thick canopy of autumn trees. The road ran alongside some old railroad tracks, just like back in Coweta County. The world smelled like rain.

"This is Morgan," said Carol, out front. She had a big rifle and a long machete dangling off her hip. The ponchos were a whole look. "Morgan uses a big stick to kill walkers."

“Nice to meet you,” said Beth.

Morgan said, "Likewise."

“We’ve been traveling together since back at the church. He knows Rick.”

“You know Rick?” said Daryl.

“From the very beginning."

“This is Aaron,” Beth said. Aaron had been staying in the background. He was a tall man with curly hair and an almost studious disposition.

“Do you all live nearby, or are you on the move?” said Morgan.

“We live in a gated compound,” said Aaron, coming forward, flinging his rifle over his shoulder. They were all walking very fast. “It's called Alexandria. About fifteen, maybe twenty miles south of here. We were out scouting for others, and for supplies. But then we got waylaid.”

“Yes, we noticed,” said Carol. “Well, you won’t make it home by dark. We have a safehouse, not far. That's where we're headed.”

“Y’all got a safehouse?” said Daryl. “How long you been in the area?”

Carol shrugged. “A couple of weeks?”

“Weeks?”

“We’ve been tracking a few different trails,” said Morgan, shifting his big stick from one hand to the other. “They’ve all been dead ends. Until today.”

The sky was cloudy, and the woods were full of fog. They continued up the tracks for maybe a mile more, then they cut over to a well-hidden trailhead. The walkers had dispersed. Daryl and Aaron cut through a swath of bramble while Morgan took point. Carol and Morgan were familiar with the Ws. They said they’d had an actual run-in with a couple of them some miles back. "Bad characters," said Carol, "called themselves _Wolves_." The Wolves did not have guns, and they were easy to avoid once you caught their tells. They liked to leave gross parting gifts. It was unclear what they wanted. Morgan called them pirates. Carol called them assholes. But that was all they knew. The Wolves traveled in packs, but other than that, they did not seem like wolves at all. They knew how to set elaborate traps, many of them helmed with loud music. Morgan speculated they were from the area, because they seemed to know it well. Daryl looked around at these Paleozoic hills. It was deep backcountry. "Goddam hill people," he said.

"Like the X-Files," said Carol.

"Truly," said Morgan.

With the sun cresting over the trees, they ran into a rural Wal-greens with a small parking lot completely covered in a web of dead leaves. It was shuttered with the irons pulled on the doors. There were no trails, no signs of human life anywhere. Daryl picked the lock in the delivery entrance, and they all went inside. It was a boon of supplies. Canned goods, dry goods, water, medicine. They found one walker, the manager, had locked himself in the break room and presumably died from the bite in his left thigh. Morgan took care of it with his big stick.

Daryl and Aaron began to raid the snack aisles. Beth could hear them, talking about something, some memory. Aaron was from Maryland, a wealthy place. He and his family had a small vineyard on their property. He was telling Daryl about the vines, and how his uncle had a big vineyard in California. Daryl thought this was interesting. The only thing Daryl knew how to make was pure moonshine. Aaron expressed interest in learning. He wanted to make whiskey, Kentucky bourbon. Daryl said he thought he knew a couple things, but they would need corn. Aaron thought on it. There were farms in the area. They could scout for seeds, fields gone feral. It was harvest season. They could have a full stash of grain alcohol in no time flat.

When Beth was sure that Daryl could not see, she went over to the pharmacy. She wished she could show Maggie. They had everything. She grabbed Advil and cough medicine, lidocaine, Neosporin. She emptied a four boxes of tampons into her backpack. A tampon was a true rarity these days. The girls had to make their own pads out of cotton rags and shirts. Then she grabbed some cranberry pills and some dandelion tea, and two boxes of First Response pregnancy tests.

Carol came around the corner then. She was holding a few boxes of Nutri-grain bars and a bottle of Pedialyte. She saw the pregnancy tests in Beth's backpack. 

“Hi,” said Beth.

Carol tried to change the subject. She held up a box of Nutri-grain bars. "Does Carl still like these? I remember him once, devouring a whole box at the prison. Glenn and Maggie had brought some back from a convenience store in town. That was a long time ago, but I thought I'd bring some back to Alexandria, just in case. Like an offering."

“Carl will eat anything,” said Beth. “He’s fourteen.”

"That’s what I figured."

"You know, it ain't what you think," said Beth, her cheeks very red. "The pregnancy tests."

“Okay.”

“I just—I didn’t see any back at the infirmary. It can’t hurt to be prepared. Maggie and Glenn, they been talking about it. You never know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Hey, Greene!” said Daryl, from somewhere at the front of the store.

Beth physically startled. She zipped her backpack shut. “What?”

“Get over here! I got somethin for you.”

Beth looked at Carol. Carol shrugged. "He would make a very good father. You know that, right?”

Beth said, “Of course I do,” flung the backpack over her shoulder, and went by.

When she found Daryl, he and Aaron were sitting up on the checkout counter, eating handfuls of Raisinettes. He tossed her a box. She said, “Thanks.” But then he tossed her a bottle. She caught it, somehow. When she looked at the label, she started laughing. “Boone’s Farm?”

“Didn’t you say you had a dream once where we were drinkin Boone’s Farm on the porch?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well maybe we can make that dream come true, little songbird.”

In that moment, she thought, he was probably the cutest thing she’d ever seen. “You’re such a dork.”

“A dork? I thought it was romantic.”

“It is,” she said. He seemed so happy, like a boy, full of hope. She went over and kissed him. He had found a little jar of toothpicks, had one stuck behind his ear. She thought that was cute, too. “Thank you.”

“I’m marking this place on my map,” said Aaron. “We need to come back with a couple vehicles, do a real supply run, and soon. It’s like buried treasure.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Morgan, stepping over a stack of cardboard boxes. He had a canvas sack over his shoulder, filled with bottles of water. “But for now, we should go. The sun is almost down. I don’t want to run into anymore surprises.”

“How much further to the safehouse?” said Daryl, chewing a toothpick.

“Not much,” said Carol. “It’s in a little office building, just another mile or so.”

They ended up in a dusty old town like some place you’d see in the movies. One main street, cobblestone sidewalks, one stoplight, and everything grown over with vines and the autumn foliage in many colors. It was not a wealthy place, as Daryl had earlier surmised. The houses were old and small as tin cans. There was a trailer park called _Buena Vista Heights_. There were a couple walkers, here and there, stumbling around like idiots. Morgan took point on most of them. He was fast and sharp, a very serious person. He had sad eyes.

The office building was small, red brick. Morgan and Carol had cleared and fortified the entire second floor, which they reached by climbing the fire escape. It was two offices and a little lobby and a break room with a kitchenette. It was a local branch for State Farm Insurance. The State Farm agent’s name had been Jim Beam, his name and picture on all the business cards and hanging on a plaque on the wall. It was tragic that Jim Beam was probably dead, but his name was still funny.

It started raining. They lit a bunch of candles. Aaron zonked out almost immediately after dinner, collapsed on the blue couch in the back office, hugging a throw pillow, didn’t even bother taking off his shoes. Morgan took first watch, and Carol sat outside with him. They were smoking cigarettes. Or, somebody was. You could smell it, coming through the cracks in the window.

Daryl and Beth were alone, lying on a wool blanket they’d scavenged at the Wal-greens, on the floor in Jim Beam’s office. Daryl thought about fletching an arrow, but Beth took off her sweatshirt, and underneath all she had on was this plain white thing with the sleeves cut off, something she’d found in one of the drawers back in Alexandria. She had taken out the braid from her hair, and it was just laying across her shoulders and golden plaits. He just touched the ends with his fingers, and she shivered. Then she kissed him, hard, and she gave him some, just like that, while he lie flat on his back on the wool blanket on the floor. He’d never felt like this, inside a girl, so deep inside he saw stars. He came into her, his mouth silent, at the soft of her throat.

She whispered, “I love you, Daryl Dixon.”

Everything still flickered inside him, every muscle coming loose like a slinky. “Beth Greene," he said, "you got no idea."

After she was asleep, Daryl heard the window open and shut again, out to the fire escape. He put his shirt on, went out to see, pulled the door closed behind him. It was Carol. She took off her gray poncho and set it on the little secretary's desk. Then she went and sat down in the break room with the kitchenette, at the table there, with a bottle of water. Everything about her was so familiar. Daryl sat down with her. The room was simple and unadorned, with white walls and a coffee maker and a framed picture of a sail boat over the cheap sink. They were quiet for a while, just existing, listening to Aaron’s heavy breathing from the other room. Carol sipped her water. Daryl sighed, pressing his thumb to his lips, then biting off a hangnail. It started to bleed. He sucked it clean.

“So,” said Carol, turning the bottle in her hand. 

"What is it."

"How'd it happen?" she said. "You and Beth."

Daryl looked down at the fake woodgrain in the cheap, plastic table. "Does it matter?"

"I have to ask," said Carol. 

”After the prison went up in flames, we got out together,” he said. "We were trying to find everyone. Trying to find Rick, but it was hard."

She reached for his hand, a familiar gesture. Carol had bird bones, even more so than Beth. Carol was elegant and small. She barely made her presence known. Beth was a tall girl. She was strong. She could hold him down, the only one who ever could. 

"You found each other instead," said Carol. 

"I guess you could say that."

She took a deep breath, a big, profound sigh. “Well, I must say. I’m surprised, but I’m not entirely shocked.”

“You’re not?”

”Why would I be?” she said “Your like a knight. Your Rick’s right hand. She’s Hershel’s daughter, full of music and love. It’s like a damn fairy tale.”

Daryl felt hot in his cheeks. “Don’t make much sense to me. But I’m done askin questions.”

“You seem happy.”

”I am. For goddam once.”

”How long has it been?”

”A couple months.” Daryl held her fingers in his hand. There were little cuts on her knuckles that had healed. "Why'd you go back to the church," he said, looking at the creases in the skin in her palms. "Rick said you just left."

She closed her hand into a fist. "You always ask the easy questions," she said. "A lot of reasons, Daryl. After Terminus, I was nobody. You weren't with Rick, and that scared me. You were supposed to be with him, that's what I told myself. I thought I'd never see you again."

"So why’d you try and find us then."

"The honest truth is," she said, "I just...missed it. All of it. Even the bad parts. I didn't know what else to do. When I got back to the church, nobody was there. I thought about staying forever, just making it my new home. It was acceptable enough. I'd found Beth's map. She was alive. That was hopeful, but I couldn't do it alone. When Morgan came, and he knew Rick, it was like fate, or a message from god."

"You believe in all that?" said Daryl.

"Not really," said Carol. "But it's a nice idea. And it was enough at the time."

They sat, listening to the rain falling on the roof, collecting in the gutter. 

"Beth believes," said Daryl. He pressed both his palms to the surface of the table, spread out his hands, like leather mitts. "That everything's got a purpose. Even the dead."

"Are you gonna marry her?" said Carol.

The question took him off guard. "I don't know.”

"That's a yes," said Carol, amused. But then she became very serious. Like she wanted him to listen hard, and to believe her. "I know you, Daryl. You won't leave her, or let her go. The sooner you accept that, the better. You don't have to be alone. I always hoped you’d see."

Daryl stared at her, her fragile eyes. He fashioned a toothpick from his pocket, set it between his teeth. 

Then, "Daryl?" 

It was Beth, tugging her sweatshirt over her head, coming into the break room, her hair wild with sleep. She looked worried.

"I'm right here," he said. "Hey. We were just talkin."

Beth was immediately relieved. She came and sat down with them. "What are you talkin about?"

Carol sighed dramatically. "Oh, you know. Just me. And my fucked up life."

Beth grabbed her hand right off the table and said, “You're too hard on yourself, Carol. You're strong. You need to believe that."

Touched, Carol did not know what to say. Beth used such speed. Like very pretty lightning. Even her hair, the little flyaways around her face sort of stuck up into the air like lightning. In some ways, she was very young. But in others, she was not young at all.

"Why don't you guys get some sleep," said Daryl, pushing back from the table. "I'll take watch, give Morgan a rest."

"No, no," said Carol, patting his hand. "We got it. We're used to it. You guys go back to bed."

"You sure?" said Daryl.

"Of course," said Carol. "I'm always sure."

Back in Jim Beam's office, Daryl couldn't sleep. Beth sensed it. He had got up and leaned against the wall and actually started fletching that arrow. He arranged the feathers first on the floor. He chewed one toothpick to bits then started chewing on another one. Beth leaned against him, sleepy but refusing to shut her eyes, watching instead, Daryl's handiwork. 

"You want me to sing somethin?" she said.

"I always want you to sing somethin," said Daryl. "But I know you're tired. You should shut your eyes, Beth. I'll be right here."

"I know." She took a deep breath. "But seeing Carol again, it's just making me think. About everything that happened at the farm. Lori. The Governor. We never talk about it, you know? None of us. We just push it all down."

"You wanna talk about somethin?" said Daryl, shaving down a long stick, making it sharp at the end. 

"Just my daddy," she said, staring dreamily, off into the window, the generic, curtains, the floral shades in the dull and brassy light from the candles. "I miss him. That's obvious. But even more than that now, I just wish he was here. I wanna tell him about you, and I want him to see us, and know I'm okay. I'm safe. I want you guys, you and him and Glenn, to sit out on the porch together, smoke cigars and look at the sun going down while me and Maggie are inside, talking by the fire."

"You paint a real nice picture, Beth. Always have."

"We just have to carry on," she said then, in all of her certainty. “Paint a new picture, I guess. What do you think?”

He kissed the top of her head, the little curls ticking his nose. "I think we will, little songbird." 

Outside, Carol lit a cigarette. She smoked with her legs dangling off the fire escape. The rain had stopped, but the moon was muffled in the sky, and the fog rolled out over the streets, like ghosts.

Morgan said, "Those things'll kill you."

"I know," said Carol. "You want one?"

He laughed. 

The streets were wet and shiny, slick. You could hear a walker down there, somewhere, trapped behind something. Maybe a dumpster, or a downed tree. Being outside, with Morgan, that is what she had gotten used to. Carol was a chameleon, but these small things, these little familiar comforts sustained her. Before, it had been Daryl. But that was the past.

"They have lives now," said Carol, smoking. "They’re making a future. So much has happened."

"We need to show them," said Morgan. "What we found, lurking in that canyon. As soon as possible. That's a ticking time bomb."

"I know," she said. "We will tomorrow, on our way to Alexandria."

”On our way to stay?” said Morgan.

Carol emptied her lungs, blew the smoke out into the air where it blended in with the fog. ”I’m not sure yet.”

"What do you think Rick will do?" said Morgan. “About the walkers. I'm curious.”

Carol finished her smoke, put it out on the edge of the fire escape, flicked the filter to the sidewalk below. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. "He'll fix it. It’s what he does.”

She looked at Morgan, right at him, and smiled. They had been traveling together for weeks, and yet so much about him was a complete mystery to her. Another familiarity, she supposed. She thought about kissing him. Maybe that's what it would take. Maybe that would solve it. But she didn't kiss him. She just thought about it, then the thought went away, and she looked back out at the wet cement, and the fog.


	16. Halo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cw: More violence than usual in this one. Canon typical._

_Distilled_

Back in Georgia, when he and Beth had burned down that shine shack, Daryl hadn’t really thought ahead. That was sort of the point, but once it lit up, they didn’t have any place to go, and it was like two o’clock in the morning and she was tipsy and elated, and he had a screaming headache, and they were stumbling through the woods like idiots, groping through the dark till he found her hand. When a crop of walkers started coming out the brush, looking for the source of the smoke, he yanked her close to him, and they pressed their backs to a tree, and after the danger had passed, they kept going until they found an old campsite with an RV sometime before dawn. He cleared it quick, de-braining a married couple, and then he and Beth dragged their zombie bodies out of the RV and into the brush. When she thought he was not looking, Beth arranged their hands over their chests in eternal resting fashion and even placed flowers behind their ears.

The next night, a cold snap hit. Some early tells to the fall, bringing in a couple days in the mid-fifties with cloud cover and cold rain. They shacked up in the RV, and the married couple had some clothes, which they sifted through, and Beth found a fuzzy cardigan sweater and some gloves, off of which she cut the fingers, and Daryl found a brown button-up in decent shape. There was no food and no water. Beth rinsed out a mopping bucket and stuck it out on the roof to catch the rain. Daryl hunted as many squirrels as he could shoot through the eyeball. This was a strange time in which everything had happened between them, and yet somehow, nothing had taken place, and nobody knew what was supposed to happen next, and half the time Daryl felt like kissing her and the other half he was slapping himself for the impurity of the thought. Beth went on as if nothing had changed, and she seemed entirely unaware of the effect she had on him.

Their last night in the RV, it got really cold. There was no heat inside, no nothing, only a couple shitty quilts, and no safe place to light a fire. They put those quilts over their shoulders, and sat on the floor, and Beth found a deck of cards, but it was incomplete. So they played probably a dozen games of War, and everytime she won a battle and scooped up his cards off the carpet, her stack getting bigger and bigger, she would gloat performatively and he would lose himself to the familiar sound of her voice and the warm welcome of her nature. She pushed the hair back off his face so she could see his eyes. She patted her hand to his knee. She touched him in casual ways that sent electricity coursing through his body. Soon he would do the same.

As a pretty girl, Beth seemed used to a certain kind of attention from boys and men, like a petty, shallow forgiveness of petty and shallow faults, but he could feel her trying to move away from that, like she didn’t want it anymore, like she wanted to be real instead of just some dream. That night, it was so cold, she slept beside him. They let their bodies warm to one another, and as she pressed up against him, he could not sleep, so he began to wonder about Zack and Jimmy and everybody else that was ever there before he was, and again, he slapped himself, because it seemed too foreign like outer space. But in those RV days, playing War and eating squirrel jerky and drinking rain out of tin cans and sleeping underneath shitty quilts with Beth, he began to realize exactly what was happening to him. He liked her.

The next day, they set out for warmer pastures. It was the early afternoon when they found the cemetery, then the funeral home, that piano where Beth played, and a little house nextdoor full of food and a funny one-eyed dog.

Now, Daryl was lulling back into consciousness. He had a bullet graze in his elbow, and it hurt like fuck, and the blood had all pooled in his sleeve and run down his arm and stained his hand and got in his fingernails. His wrists were bound up with a rough rope, and he heard some leaves crunching. Then there was a blond guy, with big blue eyes like sea glass, getting right up in his face. 

_Get up._

Daryl thought he was leaning against a tree. His head hurt.

_Hey, get up._

Last thing he remembered, it had all gone to shit but they’d got half the herd twenty miles. It was the end of the line. He’d lost Rick on the radio sometime after he was headed for home, so Daryl turned back. But when he got to Sasha and Abraham, a hail of gunfire unlocked through the trees, and they went one way while Daryl went the other, and he was alone, and his bike went down in the woods and skidded over, and he was lying flat on his back, staring up at the beauty of the canopy. He got to his feet. He took off his vest. He tried seeing the wound in this left elbow. But then two women popped out out of nowhere with their hands up and everything went black. They had been afraid of him. They were running from somebody. They thought he was somebody else.

Now, blond guy had stuck a gun in Daryl’s face. Blond guy must have hit Daryl over the head with something heavy. It had been a while since Daryl had been knocked unconscious and tied up and kicked into submission like this. He thought of Grady and its cold, white lights like a cage.

 _We’re movin,_ blond guy said _. You don’t say shit, and I don’t kill you._

The two girls sort of stood in the back like blurry angels. He just needed to get home.

_I ain’t who you think._

_Say somethin else,_ said the blond, clicking down the hammer, shoving the gun right down in Daryl’s face. _Go ahead._

_Tests_

The night they all returned to Alexandria, Rick and Deanna had orchestrated a tribunal as a means of dealing with Pete. Sam had been saying weird things to everybody, especially Carl and Father Gabriel, and so a couple days after Noah’s party when Jesse showed up to the pantry with a black eye all caked over in a bad make-up job, it became clear. Pete could not be allowed his freedom anymore. But Jesse was adamant about her children and teaching redemption and being Christ-like and all that, so they could not put him to pasture either.

Over the next few days, Tyreese and Abraham and a whole crew, with help and planning from Reg, used some of the scrap metal from the nearby mall construction site to put together two jail cells in the basement of one of the empty houses near the edge of the community. This was deemed the courthouse and the prison, and it was where Pete would sit until he was sober, and they could figure out how the hell to move forward. Rosita volunteered to be a guard, as did Tyreese and a couple of other people from the town. After Rick stuck Pete in the tank, a psychiatrist from Maryland named Denise was put in charge of the infirmary. Noah and Tara volunteered to work there, too, and as did Eugene, though mostly just to tag along with Tara and Noah, who were perhaps his closest friends and partners in D&D.

Carol kept her distance. Everybody was so happy to see her, but she kept her distance. She and Morgan lived in a house outside the walls. It was rundown and crappy, but who was she to judge? Home, sweet, home. It was better than a church, or a prison, or a haunted farm, or a quarry tent, or King County, Georgia. It even had running water, and a little bed in a little room with a little chair where she could sit and clean her guns and sharpen her knives and smoke her cigarettes out the window.

Carol would sit there smoking and watch the walkers go by. Sasha would snipe them from the tower. Then they would fall down and never get up again.

Every single day, Beth would come out to their house, armed with a pistol and a knife, and she would bring Carol and Morgan a casserole or some peanut butter sandwiches. Sometimes, Enid would wander along, too. Enid was a strange girl who spent a lot of time wandering around silently and staring up at the corners of the ceiling. Once, she pointed out to Carol all of the water stains in the whole house and then she just sat on the fire place mantle, staring at the southwest style rug on the floor.

One day, Carol watched Enid eat a cookie over a period of fifteen minutes, nibbling it silently as a mouse. She asked her who her friends were in the town, but Enid just shrugged and said, “Carl and Ron. But Carl’s dad is a cop, and Ron’s dad is in jail, so.” Carol understood the predicament implicitly. She gave Enid the box of Nutri-grain bars. She though the girl could use a little normalcy. She said, “Give these to Carl for me, won’t you? You guys can share them. I won’t tell.” Enid looked at the box in confusion, as if it were an ancient relic from a museum.

Carol kept thinking about going into those walls to live, to try. Beth would bring it up and even press her on it, because she was an insistent person, and she didn’t care who knew it, and Carol could see now why Daryl loved her. Either way, Carol demurred. She was not Daryl. She didn’t have a notion for love, still burning inside her heart, just waiting to be coaxed free. When she left Georgia with Morgan, she had not really known what she would find out there. She had her hopes, but certainly, she just assumed that in pursuing them, she would eventually be dead. Of course, she was not dead. She had found Daryl, and Daryl had brought her back to Rick, and now they had a home. Things worked out. Why couldn’t she just learn from this?

Now, it was the day of the dry run. The plan was for Rick to take a crew of brave men and women out there to that canyon full of walkers to the north, use Daryl on his bike, and Sasha and Abraham in an old Camry sedan, to lure them all away. She wasn’t sure of all the details. They needed to act out the plan first, get everybody ready, show them the abomination so they could see for themselves what was at stake. The actual plan would not take action for a couple more days. The people of Alexandria were very soft, thought Carol. That was the rub of this place.

Rick had asked Carol if she wanted to come along, but he had asked her in such a way that suggested she ought not to. He was thankful that she and Morgan had discovered that place, that they had returned the information to him, but he needed ruthless humans to stay behind. He didn’t say that outright, but she thought that’s what he probably meant based on the way he looked at her. He knew the new Carol. New and _improved._ Again, she liked this person better, but what good was that now? Now that she saw what had been waiting for her this whole time. Alexandria. She thought Rick needed her in this way, to be like him, and she could not decide if it was good or bad. She didn’t know if she was like Rick. She thought when Rick did what had to be done, it was somehow covered in that shiny cowboy sheen. It was right. But when she did it, it was all gray. It was wrong.

That day, Carol decided to go into Alexandria, to visit Beth for a change. Morgan stayed behind with his stick. Beth and Daryl’s house was right in the center of the town, big and lovely like something out of a magazine. It was almost funny, the thought of Daryl living in this place, living a whole other life that she would never really see.

She stood on the porch. People went by. A child with light hair was flying a kite. There was a woman standing out on the lawn nextdoor, smoking a cigarette. When Carol looked at her, she nodded and said, “I think Daryl’s on the dry run thingy. You lookin for Beth?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Carol. “Just Beth.”

“Usually she leaves early to go to Rick’s house, but I haven’t seen her today.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you.”

“You’re Carol, right?” said the woman, smoking.

Carol tightened the sweater around her shoulders. “That’s me.”

“I’m Shelly,” said the woman. She was kind. “You should come to the pantry some time. Do you know how to cook?”

“A little,” said Carol.

“Well, a little is all we need.”

“Then I’m your girl.”

“I hope you like living here,” said Shelly, dipping her cigarette in an old coffee mug. “I know it’s not much. But it’s okay.”

“Thank you,” said Carol, opening the screendoor. “And for the record, it’s more than okay.”

Shelly smiled.

Carol knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. So she knocked again. She thought it was probably fine to go inside. She turned the handle and pushed the door open. This was no prison cell. The living room was clean. It wasn’t overly tidy. The throw pillows were rumpled, there were books and coffee cups. It was lived in. Beth’s purple backpack was open on the gray couch. One of Daryl’s shirts hung off a kitchen chair, with a new blue patch freshly pinned to the arm and there was a pile of some fletching stuff on the table.

“Beth?” she said. “It’s Carol.”

There was a short silence. Then, she heard Beth’s hesitant voice from upstairs. “Hey. I’ll be right down.”

“Okay,” said Carol, suddenly feeling like she was standing naked in front of the class. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Something caught her eye then, out the front window. It was just Shelly. She had been smoking another cigarette, but then a strange man appeared from behind, and he killed her barbarically with a machete.

_Why couldn’t she just learn?_

“What will you do?” said Maggie, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. “If it’s positive?”

The bathroom was white and clean. Beth had just scrubbed it that morning with Pinesol. Her mother had always preferred Pinesol over any other cleaning product for the bathroom. “I don’t know,” she said, sitting on toilet lid. “I mean, what do you mean?”

“I mean, I ain’t sure.” Maggie was nervous, too. She had bitten off all her nails. “It ain’t what I meant.”

“I know,” said Beth. She took a deep breath. “I get it. You gotta ask.”

“I just wonder, Bethie. You’re young. It’s okay to be scared.”

“I ain’t been young for a long time,” said Beth, looking down at the white ceramic tile floor. “I ain’t scared.”

“Have you told Daryl? Have you guys talked about it?”

Beth shook her head. “He doesn’t know.”

“Why?”

“I just—I didn’t wanna worry him, Maggie. He needed to be there today, with Rick, and I ain’t sure, so. I figure whatever it is, I’ll just tell him tonight when he gets back.”

“Okay,” said Maggie. “Then let’s find out, once and for all. Do you have to pee?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of is enough.”

“Okay,” said Beth. She stood, picked up the lid. She looked down into the shiny, clean bowl. She blew all the breath out her lungs. “Let’s do this.”

Maggie looked away, over at the doorknob as she did it. Beth peed on the stick. Then she put the plastic cap on and set it upside-down on the counter. She pulled up her jeans, flushed the toilet, and sat back down on the closed lid. She was pulled in tight, every part of her like a spring. She looked at her thumbnails. She had been chewing the skin off, around her cuticles, ever since the Wal-greens.

“How long does it take?” said Beth.

“Uh.” Maggie checked the instructions. She was fastidious. She didn’t like to make mistakes. “Three minutes.”

“How will we know when it’s three minutes?”

“We’ll just ballpark it,” said Maggie. “Sound good?”

“Okay.”

Maggie grabbed both her hands. They looked out the window. It was octagonal. It had a little gray curtain. “How is Daryl feeling about the dry run?” she said.

“I’m not sure,” said Beth. “I think he’s just worried, you know. About everyone. These people ain’t us. But they could be.”

“They’re trying,” said Maggie. “That’s what matters, for today.”

“Why didn’t you go with?” said Beth, pressing her thumb across Maggie’s knuckles. “I mean, I thought you would want to be a part of it, with Glenn.”

“Deanna asked me to stay behind,” she said. “She’s nervous. She’s starting to come to grips, but you know how she is.”

“I need to get to Rick’s after this,” said Beth. “Carl is supposed to teach Father Gabriel more about guns today. I can’t leave him hangin.”

“He’s been doin real good,” said Maggie. “Father Gabriel. Stiff, as usual, but less so than before.”

“He’s a good man,” said Beth. “He tries. He just needs to see.”

They looked at their knees. Then they looked at the plastic pregnancy test, upside-down on the counter. “I think it’s been three minutes,” said Maggie.

“Okay,” said Beth. “Here goes.”

She flipped it over. Her period was like eight or ten days late. Maybe more. She’d lost track after the farm but it was never this late before. She had been feeling weird, too. Like something was burning a wick inside her, uneasy. She was tired all the time.

She saw two pink lines, like a little equal sign. Bright and clear as day.

“It’s two lines,” said Beth. “That’s it, right? Does that mean I’m it?”

Maggie knew what it meant, but she checked the instructions anyway. Then she squeezed Beth’s hand and started to cry. It was happy tears.

“I’m pregnant?”

Maggie nodded. “You’re gonna have Daryl’s baby.”

Beth felt a wave of uncertainty and joy, socking her square in the chest. It was strong, but it was not fear. She felt prepared for this. She hugged Maggie. Maggie smelled good, like lavender flowers, and Beth thought she might cry, too, but she didn’t. She sucked it back, because she was afraid that if she started, Maggie would worry about it, and fret about it like she always did. It wasn't her fault. She was just being a good big sister. But Beth didn't want to cry about this. Crying opens up a door to all the bad things lurking in the back of your mind. Sometimes, you just have to leave them back there, get on with the day.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Beth said. She wasn’t sure if she was saying it to Maggie, to herself, or to both.

“Of course it is,” said Maggie.

Then, they heard the front door open downstairs. They both froze, looked at the closed bathroom door.

“Beth?” The voice was soft and familiar. “It’s Carol.”

“It’s Carol,” said Maggie. “Want me to get her out of here?”

“It’s okay,” said Beth, smoothing her hands back over the top of her hair. It was pulled into a clean ponytail. “She can know. I don’t mind.”

Maggie nodded.

Beth got up and pushed the door open. She said, “Hey. I’ll be right down.”

“I’m sorry,” said Carol. “I didn’t mean to—”

_Beth_

Beth was leaning in the foyer, with her back against Rick’s front door. Her hands were shaking, like trees in wind. There was blood on her white t-shirt. She snagged it forward, just to make sure none of of it was hers. Then she checked the magazine on her pistol, a heavy semi-automatic that she kept in a drawer by the bed. She closed her eyes and pictured the farm, and Daryl. She thought of Daryl picking her a magnolia flower, and his very blue eyes that he hid from the world. She pushed the sweaty hair all out of her face and took a deep breath and opened her eyes again. She saw Enid, sitting on the floor, leaning against the opposite wall with her dirty cheeks. She took a notebook out of her leather pack. She scribbled something in it with a red pen, then she held it up so Beth could see. It had little bloody finger prints around the edges. It said, _JUST SURVIVE SOMEHOW._

At first, it had been quiet, only screams. They didn’t use guns. Their weapons were crude, like different sharp tools from the hardware store, welded together by hand. Shelly was dead. So were a lot of people. Beth didn’t know them all, but she saw their bodies bleeding out on the sidewalk, hanging out windows and open front doors. Carol went right to it. She killed a man and stole his clothes. She said, “Maggie, which way’s the armory?” Maggie pointed, and Carol was gone.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, but Beth and Maggie split up. Maggie went right, to find Deanna and Reg. Aiden was on the dry run and Spencer was in the look-out tower that day. He shot up a semi-truck, blasting off the horn for several minutes until Morgan pried open the cab and turned it off. He came into the walls at some point, with his stick. Beth remembered seeing him as she went left, to Rick’s house. She had heard what Daryl said, back at that record store. _Just don’t do that sorta shit. Not if you don’t have to._ So she went behind the houses, through the backyards. She saw Father Gabriel, pinned to the cellar doors by a man with black jeans and a ponytail, and she had to. She shot the man’s knee out, then when he buckled, and the shot was clear, his neck. Father Gabriel took care of the rest, blood spatter on his collar, and he came and took Beth by the hand.

Enid was one yard over, then another. They watched her hair whipping out as she ran. She pressed her back to the siding around the back of Rick’s house and when she saw Beth and Father Gabriel, she held her finger up to her lips. She had a red brick in her hand. A man was coming up the breezeway then, and he had a big, rough machete, stained red, and one of those red Ws scratched in his face. When he turned the corner to Rick’s backyard, like he was on a mission, Enid stuck her foot out and tripped him, and when he was down, she got on his back and she picked up that brick, and she put it into his skull, mindlessly, until he stopped moving. She tossed the brick, yanked a large ring off keys off his belt loop, held them up so Beth and Gabriel could see. It had been the master key set. He must have got it from Deanna’s somehow. Beth feared for Maggie’s life. Enid went inside.

They started hearing more gunshots then. Everywhere. It was Carol, Beth knew. Carol always knew what to do. Beth thought about Noah. She shook him out of her head like a dog, and then she heard a loud scream, like a man possessed. When she turned around, she saw a viking motherfucker with tattoos of Loony Toons characters in his calves. The Tazmanian Devil. The Roadrunner. She would never forget it. He was coming toward them, deranged as if rabid. Maybe he was. How would she know? Beth shot him six times. He didn’t seem to understand that she had a gun. She could see it in his eyes, that he went down without realizing why. Gabriel inched toward him, nudged his ear with the toe of his boot. She’d got the head. Gabriel looked as if he didn’t know whether to congratulate her or start crying.

Inside Rick’s house, Carl was armed to the teeth. He had an automatic rifle, with a silencer, and he was wearing his father’s hat. He was clean and fresh, with his crisp blue checkered button-up, peaking through the curtains on the window protectively. He had Judith’s monitor in his back pocket, and she was upstairs, fast asleep. They joined him in silence, saw Rosita and Aaron through the window, coming down the steps from the infirmary, unloading on as many of these strange barbarians as they could.

Beth felt like her body was peeling around the edges and then splitting in half. Twenty minutes ago, she had found out she was pregnant. Gabriel wanted to go back out, to help. She tried to tell him not to. But Carl just gave him the 9mm he’d had shoved in the back of his jeans. He said, _Just remember what we talked about. If you have to put it up, be ready to kill._

They sat down. Carl went outside, to help Ron, but Ron ran home. Carl came back in. Beth was not sure what to do. Maybe she should have gone back out there. She wasn’t scared. Or, she was, but she would’ve done it anyway. Maybe that would have been gallant? But she wasn’t a knight. Was it worse for everybody? She was a good shot, but she wasn’t a hero. Her job was here. She needed to be here, with Carl, and Judith. That was her job. That had always been her job. Then at some point, it all ended, and she didn’t have to think about it anymore. You could hear the cries of fear and grief, but the screaming had stopped. Beth got up. Enid did, too. She turned the bolt on the front door, pulled it open, and stepped outside.

The white light of the sun felt severe. Everything was blanched and faded. Squinting into the daylight, Beth went down to the yard, fell to her knees, and threw up in the grass. It was just bile, and just once. When she looked up, wiping her mouth on her wrist, she saw Aaron, looking around in horror. One of the bodies on the curb by his feet started to reanimate. He noticed, stuck his knife in without a thought, then sat down on the grass beside it. Beth got up and dusted off her jeans. Enid was there. “Are you okay?” she said, worried.

Beth said, “I’m fine.”

Beth looked both ways before she crossed the street, like it mattered. Then she sat down next to Aaron on the curb. He started to cry.

The air felt thin and burned away. There was the dead walker, a ring around the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one more chapter in Part 4. Thank you for reading ❤️ -gala
> 
> Listening for Chapter 16:
> 
> "Star Witness" by Neko Case ([youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFedf-rVUwk) | [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/17fWdcSAhLc6559youmLap?si=HP_2l_NwSnmvSN_19YjREA))
> 
> Events from this chapter are inspired by episodes 6.2 (“JSS”) and 6.6 (“Always Accountable”).

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my Bethyl Playlist for this fic on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UN42NDJAzpjjzsBzBhHN8?si=8GbUS6i_TSao_n1EjC1Vtg). ^_^
> 
> If you like the story, please consider leaving me a comment. I cherish every one. ❤️ You can also come talk to me on [tumblr](https://galadrieljones.tumblr.com/) if you like, and find all my Bethyl art on [my art blog](https://gala-art.tumblr.com/tagged/bethyl/). 
> 
> Thank you for all your votes and nominations for this fic in the 2020 Bethyl Moonshine Awards. It won third place for Best Fix-it/Reunion wip. I love writing this story so much and I'm very thankful!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading ^_^ -gala


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